Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko, a loyal ally of Russia’s Vladimir Putin, has warned President Donald Trump that the U.S. handing subsonic Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine would mean “nuclear war.”
Trump is reportedly considering a request by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for the Tomahawks, which have a 1,500-mile range that would enable Kyiv to strike much deeper into Russian territory, hitting strategic targets such as the invader’s enemy infrastructure, military bases, and munitions factories.
Zelensky has argued that ramping up the arms available to his country would increase the pressure on the Kremlin to agree to a peace deal.
Putin, however, has warned that such a step would jeopardize the improved U.S.-Russia relations Trump has brought about, but which have nevertheless failed to bring an end to a war that has rumbled on for more than three years.
“Tomahawks will not solve the problem. They will escalate the situation to a nuclear war,” Lukashenko said at a meeting in Minsk on Tuesday, naturally siding with Putin.
“Perhaps Donald Trump understands this better than anyone, as he is in no hurry to hand over this lethal weapon for deep strikes into Russian territory, as President Zelensky is counting on.”
Belarus has been hosting Russian tactical nuclear weapons since March 2023, and the two nations carried out a joint military exercise in September 2024 to practise in case they are ever called into service.
Zelensky, who has endured a rollercoaster relationship with Trump, is due back in Washington on Friday to lobby for the missiles as well as increased sanctions on Moscow and on fellow superpowers China and India for continuing to buy up Russian energy, which is helping Putin bankroll his invasion.
“Right now, it is important to send a signal that Ukraine will be strengthened by all means possible,” Zelensky said at a press conference last week.
“And this is one of those means that is important to me – Tomahawks. All such things can strengthen Ukraine and force the Russians to sober up a little, sit down at the negotiating table.”
Trump struck a more cautious note on the subject when speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday en route to Israel, saying “we’ll see” when asked whether he planned to give them to Ukraine, acknowledging that they represented “a new step of aggression” and suggesting he could use the prospect as leverage to compel Putin to make accommodations.
Lukashenko, often characterized as a relic of the Soviet Union and Europe’s “last dictator,” last played a pivotal role at an earlier stage of the war when he negotiated an end to the mutiny staged by Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner Group mercenaries in June 2023.
That uprising briefly threatened to topple Putin but ultimately saw his men stand down and Prigozhin meet an untimely end in a suspicious plane crash just two months later.
After overseeing last September’s practice drill, Lukashenko warned the U.S. and NATO: “We will use nuclear weapons the moment they attack us.”
If such a scenario ever did come to pass, he cautioned, that would be regarded by the Kremlin as an assault against its people, too.
“Thus, Russia would deploy its full arsenal,” Lukashenko said. “And that means World War III. But the West doesn’t want that either. They are not ready for it.
“We’ve made it clear that our red line is our national borders. If they cross them, our response will be immediate. We are preparing for this. I’m being honest and transparent about it.”
In power since 1994, the Belarusian strongman said in August that he was “not planning” to seek another term but dismissed speculation that his son Nikolai was being groomed as his successor.
