How Badly Does Ukraine Need American Tomahawk Cruise Missiles?

Why investing in domestic production may serve Ukraine better than limited Western missile transfers

Picture: U.S. Navy

While the White House floated the option of delivering Tomahawk cruise missiles throughout October, Zelensky’s recent visit to the United States failed to secure a commitment. It now appears that Trump — currently pushing a renewed ceasefire initiative, making overtures toward Putin, and voicing criticism of Ukraine — has effectively decided against supplying the missile.

The question, then, is how badly Ukraine needs Tomahawk missiles and what benefits they would actually provide. As this analysis suggests, their advantages are less straightforward than often assumed, and the opportunity costs of supplying them may ultimately outweigh their utility.

How Tomahawk cruise missiles would fit into Ukraine’s arsenal

Tomahawk is a surface-launched, land-attack cruise missile with an approximate range of 1,600 kilometers. The frequently cited 2,500-kilometer figure refers only to the early TLAM-N variant, which reached that range due to its smaller nuclear payload allowing for a larger fuel tank, but is no longer operational (or relevant in this case).

Most operational variants, and the type Ukraine would likely receive, carry a 310-kilogram unitary warhead containing about 120 kilograms of PBXN-107 high explosive.

For guidance, the missile uses a combination of satellite navigation and terrain contour matching (TERCOM) for midcourse guidance, and digital scene-matching correlation through an electro-optical seeker for terminal guidance. The U.S. is currently upgrading its Tomahawk fleet with electronic warfare–hardened “M-Grade” satellite receivers, though it remains unclear whether Ukraine would receive these improved missiles. In any case, TERCOM should enable accurate midcourse navigation even without continuous access to GPS.

Compared to Ukraine’s existing conventional long-range strike weapons, Tomahawk would represent a “heavy” missile capability, combining a relatively large payload with long range and high accuracy.

The closest equivalent in Ukraine’s arsenal would be the Flamingo cruise missile, reportedly featuring a 3,000-kilometer range and a 1,150-kilogram warhead. However, the status of the program remains highly uncertain, and initial performance appears to have been slightly underwhelming.

Use cases for Tomahawk

Tomahawk offers the advantage of a tripartite combination of long range (1,500+ kilometers), relatively high payload, and high accuracy — a combination of capabilities Ukraine currently lacks in a single missile system. In principle, Tomahawk would therefore expand the range of targets Ukraine could engage with its missile arsenal.

While there are some military targets within range, it would probably make most sense for Ukraine to employ any Tomahawk cruise missiles it might receive in a similar fashion to its existing conventional long-range strike arsenal, namely by going after Russia’s war-sustaining industries, notably its oil and gas infrastructure — provided, of course, that targeting restrictions would not stand in the way.

Another potential use case raised by observers is that Ukraine might employ Tomahawk to more effectively target Russia’s arms industry, particularly production plants for military equipment, which have so far been relatively unscathed by Ukrainian missiles and long-range drones.

Two possible prime targets are the Geran-2/Geran-3 long-range drone plant in Alabuga and the 9M723 short-range ballistic missile plant in Votkinsk. Both lie roughly 1,400 to 1,500 kilometers from likely launch points; i.e., within Tomahawk’s nominal range but at the outer edge of its flight envelope. This would limit its ability to maneuver around air defenses and complicate enemy interception, though it would still provide for potential attack vectors.

The larger problem is that destroying whole production plants with conventional missiles, while possible, requires very large salvos.

For example, the Alabuga plant doubled in size between 2023 and 2025 and now comprises about 160,000 square meters of production area. Each Tomahawk warhead has a lethal radius of roughly 13 meters, within which it can cause catastrophic damage to this type of infrastructure. Assuming the goal is to comprehensively destroy 50 percent of the plant to render it inoperable for an extended period, this results in a minimum requirement of 150 Tomahawk missiles, assuming no missiles fail to reach their targets (either because of internal error or enemy countermeasures), which is unrealistic. This is a significantly larger number than the roughly mid double-digit figure previously floated for potential Tomahawk deliveries.

That calculation also assumes Ukrainian targeting planners know exactly which parts of a plant to strike, which may not necessarily be the case. In World War II, a major portion of Allied intelligence on bombing campaigns focused on locating critical machinery inside German factories and distinguishing those from non-essential areas such as break rooms.

The question today is whether Ukrainian targeting planners have comparable, detailed knowledge of where Russian CNC machines are located and where workers eat their lunch. There is also a question whether a decentralized and open-spaced plant like that in Abaluga — as seen on video imagery from inside the factory — offers these critical targets in the first place. The ballistic missile plant in Votkinsk, which relies more on advanced machinery, is likely more vulnerable in that regard.

At the same time, it should be noted that even if Ukraine were to receive a larger number of missiles, it would likely have access to only a very limited number of Typhon launcher platforms. This would severely constrain the launch rate for Tomahawk cruise missiles, making it unlikely that Ukraine could fire large salvos simultaneously.

This is not to suggest that this type of counter-industry targeting is inherently unfeasible. It is not, and Russia’s partially effective missile strikes on Ukrainian arms manufacturing facilities throughout the war demonstrate this. Still, such operations are more demanding than commentators generally suggest, and arguably require more heavy missiles than Ukraine has access to in the short-term.

A more effective approach may focus on disrupting the supply chains that support Russia’s drone and missile production — targeting critical inputs such as electronics, explosives, propellants, and composites — rather than attempting to destroy major industrial facilities outright.

Ukraine is already pursuing this strategy, most recently with its Storm Shadow strike on the Bryansk Chemical Plant. The key issue is whether Tomahawk is necessary for these missions or whether Ukraine’s indigenous systems can perform them equally, if not more efficiently.

Opportunity costs

Ukraine has over the past two years developed an impressive missile industry and become significantly less dependent on Western partners for missile technology. Nonetheless, it continues to face difficulties in scaling heavy missile production.

The central question, therefore, is whether it is more effective to supply Ukraine with a limited number of heavy missiles from Western partners or to allocate those funds toward enabling and expanding Ukraine’s own production capacity. This question extends beyond the Tomahawk debate and applies equally to recurring discussions about delivering Taurus cruise missiles.

The situation is not binary, and Ukraine could undoubtedly make effective use of 50 or so Tomahawks. However, since the United States is highly unlikely to donate these missiles, European governments might be better advised to channel the estimated $125–200 million they would cost (assuming a per-unit cost of $2.5–4 million) directly into Ukraine’s missile industry.

Given that expanding Ukraine’s domestic missile production remains a major strategic priority, this may represent the more beneficial option. In any case, whether or not Tomahawks arrive in Ukraine, this will not decide the war. What matters far more is that European governments continue to invest substantial funds directly into Ukraine’s missile sector.