US President Donald Trump said that during a telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, he asked him a question about possible supplies of long-range “Tomahawk” missiles, but the Russian leader “did not like this idea.”
“I told Putin: “Do you mind if I give a couple thousand “Tomahawk” missiles to your opponents?” He didn’t like the idea,” Trump said, answering questions from reporters.
He also said that the United States has a lot of “Tomahawks”, but the country needs them. “We need “Tomahawks”. The United States has a lot of them, but we need them. We cannot exhaust their reserves for the sake of our country. We need them too,” Trump said.
The journalist asked Trump if Putin had tried to dissuade him from selling these missiles to Ukraine. In response, Trump turned the answer into a joke. “Well, of course. What do you think he’ll say? Please sell the “Tomahawks”? He will say, “Please sell these “Tomahawks”,” the US president said.
Putin and Trump had a two-hour telephone conversation on October 16. Yuri Ushakov, an aide to the Russian leader, said that the topic of possible supplies of Tomahawks to Ukraine had been raised. According to Ushakov, the Russian leader told Trump that the transfer of these weapons to Ukraine would not change the situation on the battlefield, but would cause “significant damage” to relations between Moscow and Washington.
