11:58 07-10-2025

Russian Analyst Outlines Response to Ukraine’s Tomahawks

Military expert Mikhail Khodarenok explains how Russia might respond if the U.S. supplies Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, warning of a new stage of escalation.

Retired General Staff colonel and military analyst Mikhail Khodarenok laid out a stark scenario for how Russia should respond if the United States transfers long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine. Khodarenok said he never doubted such weapons would eventually be handed over and noted that President Donald Trump had indicated he was «practically» ready to decide. Trump’s reported caveat — that he wants to know how Kyiv would employ the missiles — did not, in Khodarenok’s view, change the basic outcome.

Khodarenok warned that, if Ukraine obtained Tomahawks, they would be used against «important and especially important» targets on Russian territory, given the missiles' long range, high accuracy and warhead of some 450 kilograms of explosive. He argued this would not necessarily reverse the course of fighting but would mark a sharp new phase of escalation and cause substantial destruction.

The analyst then proposed a staged Russian reaction. First, he said, Moscow should strike Ukrainian senior command nodes by all available means, holding Ukraine’s political leadership responsible for threats against the Kremlin. If that failed to deter Kyiv, Khodarenok recommended a demonstrative strike — invoking Russia’s military doctrine that reserves the right to use nuclear weapons in response to nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction or to aggressive actions with conventional arms that threaten the state’s existence. He described a demonstration as a single launch with a low-yield conventional or nuclear charge aimed at an uninhabited area to show delivery capability and accuracy — for example, over the Black Sea so that observers in Odessa, Nikolaev and Europe could grasp the message.

Khodarenok warned that, unless such measures halted the supply of Tomahawks and related munitions, escalation would only accelerate, driven by the very initiative to arm Ukraine.