Would Tomahawk be a game-changer for Ukraine?

Moscow boasts it has the largest drone factory in the world, churning out nearly 3,000 long-range attack models every month to strike fear and death across Ukraine. Production lines at the Alabuga factory, located in Russia’s Tatarstan region, around 600 miles east of Moscow and 800 miles from the border with Ukraine, are at full stretch. Some reports claim the maximum output could be as high as 5,500 a month. The drones in question are the Russian-adapted, Iranian-designed Shahed-136, renamed Geran-2, which when first introduced on the battlefield in Ukraine in September, 2022, raised the level of threat to the country’s energy infrastructure by a factor of ten or more. Tomorrow (Frid) on a visit to Washington, President Volodymir Zelensky, Ukraine’s embattled leader, will plead for American ground-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles, which with a range of 1,500 miles could hit the Alabuga plant and potentially cause enough damage to set back Moscow’s warfighting strategy. The red lines imposed initially by President Joe Biden, restricting the use of US-supplied long-range weapons to Russian targets within the territorial confines of Ukraine, have long been crossed. Trump has stated on a number of occasions that he is ready to be persuaded to sell Tomahawks to Zelensky. The Friday meeting in the White House could make up Trump’s mind. Tomahawks have a high-profile combat-proven reputation and Zelensky seems to have been won over by its unique capabilities. His military have aimed long-range, domestically-produced strike drones at the Alabuga plant but without halting the production lines. Tomahawk, with its ability to fly in at low altitude and evade air defences by switching route-to-target at the last moment could pose a bigger threat. Ukraine is focusing its drone and missile strikes inside Russia at the network of oil refineries and has already succeeded in reducing production levels by up 20 per cent. But a significant hit on the Alabuga plant with a Trump-donated Tomahawk would not only be a bold, escalatory step, it would also demonstrate the US president’s willingness to take on Putin and call his bluff. Whenever, the US and Europe have delivered more advanced weaponry to Kyiv in the past, Putin has threatened to resort to counter-measures, even hinting at the potential use of non-conventional systems, a euphemism for tactical nukes. Would the arrival of Tomahawks on the battlefield push Putin to more extreme measures? The Kremlin so far has adopted a distinctly uncowed approach. Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov, said Tomahawks would not change the dynamics. The US and the West in general have already learned that one specific weapon system cannot transform the battlefield in Ukraine’s favour. America’s M1A1 Abrams tanks, Atacms and Himars longer-range missiles systems, Patriot anti-missile batteries and F-16 fighter aircraft have all played their part in helping Ukraine defend itself against the Russian invaders but they haven’t given Zelensky victory. Tomahawk, capable though it is, is also unlikely to force Putin and his generals to give up the fight. “Tomahawk land-attack missiles are not terribly difficult to intercept. They fly at subsonic speeds and are not stealthy,” Andrew Krepinevich, a former senior Pentagon official, said. “Also, they are equipped with 1,000-pound warheads. As the missile’s cost is roughly $2 million, that’s not a lot of bang for the buck,” he said. He also pointed out that stocks of Tomahawks were “paper thin”. “So, it’s unlikely that we will be able to provide the number of Tomahawks it would take to make a big difference in the war. If the Alabuga factory is considered a critical target, I would suspect the Russians would have provided it with advanced air defences in the form of interceptor aircraft and surface-to-air missiles.” AGENT REDRUTH, MY NEW SPY THRILLER, IS FOR SALE NOW.