Opinion/Foreign Relations
Ken Timmerman’s Threat Watch, www.kentimmerman.com 10-18-25
Ukrainian president Zelenskyy is meeting with President Trump in the White House this afternoon, where he is expected to request the US supply him with long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles and more Patriot missile defense batteries.
The Tomahawks would definitely up the ante in the war, as Putin made clear to Trump in their phone call earlier in the week.
Originally designed to carry nuclear warheads, the Tomahawks today carry 1000 pounds of high-explosive. According to the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, that size warhead “would create an explosive damage radius of up to 1.33 km. In an urban center there could be up to 115,144 casualties in the affected area.”
Talk about an escalation!
U.S. Tomahawks come in two main versions, with ranges of 1,550 miles and 1,000 miles. Either one would bring the Kremlin within range, as well as major Russian Air Force bases used to launch strikes into Ukraine and the Iranian-built Shahed Drone factory in Yelabuga, Tatarstan.
Imagine if Zelenskyy and his hawkish advisors decided to attack the historic center of the Kremlin itself? (And that may be just what they are dreaming of).
My guess is that Trump will punt on committing to the Tomahawks until he meets Putin next week in Budapest. The reason goes to the Art of the Deal. Hey Vlad, you won’t give me some kind of ceasefire? I’m going to give Volodymir the Tomahawks. Got it?
So far, Putin has been unflinching in his irredentist demands, even after the feel-good Alaska summit with Trump. He wants to keep Crimea and to annex all of the Donbas (even beyond the roughly 90% his troops currently occupy.) And he wants a change of government in Kyiv.
He also wants a commitment that NATO won’t deploy troops into Ukraine, and certainly won’t invite Ukraine to join the NATO alliance.
My friend Steve Bryen, a deputy undersecretary of defense under Reagan who has been tracking this war in all its deadly detail, thinks some kind of ceasefire is possible.
Key for the Russians is sanctions relief, but also putting a crimp on Ukraine’s ability to strike critical infrastructure deep inside Russia. Hence, my expectation that Trump will say “not now” to the Z-man’s Tomahawk request.
Once the fighting has stopped, which is Trump’s goal, Dr. Bryen sees a longer-term solution in Ukraine granting Russia long term leaseholds, “something like the status of Hong Kong’s 99-year lease from China held by the British (until they caved in for commercial reasons and got out early).”
This would give ground cover to Ukrainian politicians, allowing them “to say they have not ‘surrendered’ any territory to Russia” while gaining income from land rentals and tariffs.
As I have said several times in this space, Trump is truly frustrated at his inability to get the two sides to a ceasefire. Even during his victory tour in Israel and Egypt on Monday, he mentioned his inability to solve the Russia-Ukraine war. The Tomahawks may give him the extra leverage he needs.
The head of Russia’s Sovereign Wealth Fund, Kirill Dmitriev, put forward what he thought was a “sweetener” to a potential US-Russia deal over Ukraine on Thursday after Putin and Trump spoke by phone. He suggested jointly building a 70-mile tunnel beneath the Bering Strait that would join Russia’s vast and sparsely-populated Chukotka region to equally vast and sparsely-populated areas in Alaska.
“Imagine connecting the US and Russia… with the Putin-Trump Tunnel – a 70-mile link symbolizing unity. Traditional costs are $65B+, but @boringcompany’s tech could reduce it to <$8B. Let’s build a future together,” Dmitriev wrote to Elon Musk on X.
The Boring Company is not an invitation to a nap, but the corporate entity Musk created to house his revolutionary new technology for boring outrageously long tunnels.
But linking two of the most inhospitable regions of the world with a 70-mile long tunnel? Really? Maybe as a tourist attraction, but not for commercial traffic.
I discuss all this, as well as the utter disarray of the Iranian regime in the aftermath of the 12-day war and the monumental Gaza Peace deal, and the absolutely astonishing massacre of Christians by jihadi terrorists in Nigeria, on this week’s Prophecy Today Weekend.
As always, you can listen live at 1 PM on Saturday on 104.9 FM or 550 AM in the Jacksonville, Florida area or by using the Jacksonville Way Radio app.
Yours in freedom,
Ken
