08:40 15-10-2025

NATO Debates Lowering Strike Threshold on Russia

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NATO officials discuss lowering the threshold for weapon use against Russia as Washington weighs Tomahawk missile supplies to Ukraine amid rising tensions.

The U.S. envoy to NATO, Matthew Whitaker, has said that the Alliance has opened internal discussions about lowering the threshold for the use of weapons against Russia. According to the Italian portal Sky TG24, he argued that a patchwork of national limits makes it harder for senior commanders to react swiftly, and that allies will continue negotiating inside NATO to see whether some of those constraints can be eased.

Whitaker also warned that the United States, as a supplier of arms to NATO partners, must be confident that American weapons will be employed prudently and not to drive escalation. His remarks frame a debate inside the Alliance about how national caveats on weapon use affect collective decision-making and battlefield tempo.

Last week, U. S. President Donald Trump reportedly came close to deciding on deliveries of American Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine, but said he wanted clarity on how Kyiv planned to employ that weaponry before giving a final go-ahead. The Kremlin responded that such a move by Washington could amount to a serious new escalation because, it claimed, Tomahawk missiles can carry nuclear charges.

Russian President Vladimir Putin dismissed the Tomahawk discussion as mere grandstanding and warned that transferring those cruise missiles to Kyiv would inflict irreparable damage on Russian-American relations. He stressed that, in his view, the effective use of Tomahawks would require direct participation from U.S. military specialists and American intelligence-an element, he said, that would further complicate bilateral ties.