Ukraine could soon receive some long-range Tomahawk missiles, vice president JD Vance has said, adding that Donald Trump will make the “final decision” on the deal.
Volodymyr Zelensky asked the US to sell the highly-coveted weapons onto European nations that would send them to Ukraine. With a range of 2,500 km, adding Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine’s artillery would put Russia’s capital within Kyiv’s range, something that could be seen by Vladimir Putin as an escalation in the three-and-a-half year war.
President Trump has previously denied Ukraine’s requests for the use of long-range missiles in the past, but as he grows more frustrated with Moscow, he appears to be more accepting of Zelensky’s requests.
The US leader has not often granted Ukraine’s requests, but suggested in June that the US could send more Patriot missile systems to Ukraine.
Speaking at the recent Nato summit in the Netherlands, the president said “we’ll see what happens” when asked whether Washington would add to the $8 billion pledged by Nato allies.
“They do want to have the anti-missile missiles, OK, as they call them, the Patriots,” the US president said. “And we’re going to see if we can make some available. We need them, too. We’re supplying them to Israel, and they’re very effective, 100 per cent effective. Hard to believe how effective. They do want that more than any other thing.”
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It would be a major boost for Kyiv to receive military assistance from the Trump administration, which has been highly resistant to sending the levels of weaponry provided to Ukraine during the Biden era.
Here, The Independent takes a look at what weapons the US and other countries have been sending to Ukraine and Russia as the war show no signs of ending soon.
Who is arming Ukraine?
Kyiv’s most significant military support comes from the EU.
The Kiel Institute, which runs a database tracking the level of military support to Ukraine since the war began, says EU member states have provided more than 67 billion euros of military aid to Ukraine between January 2022 and June 2025.
Ukraine has been supplied hundreds of tanks from Poland and Germany including the German Leopard 2, nearly 300 Dutch infantry vehicles, 76 howitzers from Italy and 16 Czech air defence systems.
This is a small snapshot of the vast array of different weapons, both defensive and offensive, provided to Ukraine by countries across Europe.
The UK has provided the second largest amount of military aid, at £13.8bn, second only to Germany’s €16.5bn. The UK’s figure was not included in the total EU figure above.
London has committed up to a further £21.8bn, including £13bn on military support and £5.3bn on non-military.
Britain has sent dozens of howitzers, a number of Storm Shadow missiles, six multiple launch rocket systems and 13 Raven air defence systems.
Washington, meanwhile, has provided more than €64 bn (£55bn) in military support.
Since November, after much lobbying by Kyiv, the US-made ATACMS missiles have been used by Ukraine in crucial strikes on targets deep inside Russia, with a range of around 190 miles (300km).
F-16 fighter jets built in the US, hundreds of M777 howitzers, dozens of HIMARS multiple rocket launchers and Abrams tanks, and more than 300 infantry vehicles are among the weapons sent to Ukraine by the US.
But the introduction of long-range Tomahawks would be a major military boost for Ukraine, with Kyiv having persistently pushed for long-range and more powerful weapons to allow it to strike targets deeper inside Russia.
US aid has totalled €114.6bn of financial, humanitarian and military donations to Ukraine since the war began, as of June this year, the Kiel Institute said. Europe, including the UK, has totalled €167.4bn.
Who is arming Russia?
Russia too has received wide support from a number of allies who are pitched alongside Moscow against Western interests – although the exact picture is a little more blurred.
Iran and North Korea are two of Moscow’s clearest military supporters.
Tehran has provided crucial support for Russia’s air capabilities, providing it with thousands of Shahed drones, which have brought huge destruction to Ukraine since the war began in February 2022.
Russia regularly fires hundreds of mass-produced drones at Ukraine overnight, in a modern style of warfare which has transformed how a conventional conflict is carried out.
But Moscow believes Tehran’s importance as a supplier has declined as Russia has localised production of the drones – a move which Iran has provided significant support for.
North Korea, meanwhile, has sent troops to Russia to help fight Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk region.
After signing a treaty which includes a mutual defence pact, Kim Jong Un is said to have sent around 12,000 North Korean troops, who assisted Russian forces in driving the Ukrainian military out of the region.
Western countries also claim China is militarily supporting the war effort in Ukraine, something which Beijing has repeatedly denied.
Russia and China have built an increasingly close bond since the war began. Presidents Xi Jinping and Putin signed a “no-limits” partnership and have repeatedly hailed each other as”dear friends”.
Beijing has been sending so-called dual-use technology which can be used for both civilian and military purposes, leaving plausible deniability for China to avoid Western sanctions.
According to Politico, Russian imports of drones and ceramics – which is a component used in body armour – has significantly increased since the war has begun. The Wall Street Journal reports that dual-use navigation equipment, jamming technology, and fighter jet parts were sold to Russian state-owned companies.
In April, Mr Zelensky said Ukrainian intelligence had found that gunpowder and artillery had been supplied by Chinese enterprises.
“We talked with the Chinese leader and he gave me his word that he won’t sell or give weapons to Russia. Unfortunately, we have facts and see the opposite information,” Mr Zelensky said at the time.
On Thursday, China’s foreign ministry denied it was supplying weapons to parties in the Ukraine war, and accused “relevant Nato personnel” of slandering China’s “normal military build-up”.
Guo Jiakun, a spokesperson for the foreign ministry, was responding to Nato chief Mark Rutte saying there was a “massive build-up” of the military in China.
