President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia warned the United States late Thursday against sending powerful cruise missiles to Ukraine. But he quickly added that he did not expect such deliveries to happen, in the latest sign that the Russian leader is continuing to bet that he can keep a warm relationship with President Trump even while frustrating his ambitions to end the war.
Vice President JD Vance said on Sunday that Mr. Trump might agree to sell American-made Tomahawk cruise missiles to European countries that would send them to Ukraine. President Volodymyr Zelensky has argued that Ukraine needs more powerful long-range weapons to deter Russian aggression, and reiterated the request at his meeting with Mr. Trump in New York last month.
Mr. Putin, in an annual appearance at a Russian foreign-policy conference on Thursday, sought to project confidence that, in the end, Mr. Trump would decide against providing the missiles to Ukraine. He described the American president as someone who “loves to shock a little” but who also “knows how to listen.”
If the United States did send Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, Mr. Putin said, the move would bring about “a qualitatively new stage of escalation.” But he went on to predict that Mr. Trump would eventually reject Ukraine’s request in part because of the United States’ inward turn under the Trump administration.
“What I see is that, as of today, the U.S. leadership is still inclined to pursue a different policy,” Mr. Putin said, “focusing on achieving national development goals, as they understand them.”
A Tomahawk has a range of 1,500 miles, more than seven times the range of the American missile systems called ATACMS that Ukraine got last year. But the Tomahawk is also a technically complex weapons system that the U.S. military needs to retain for its own uses, and analysts in Ukraine and in the West also doubt that the Trump administration would agree to provide the missiles.
Receiving Tomahawks is “hard to imagine in the foreseeable future,” said Mykhailo Samus, the director of the independent New Geopolitics Research Network in Kyiv.
Mr. Putin’s comments were some of his most extensive on the United States and Ukraine since he met with Mr. Trump in Alaska in August, and they showed that the Kremlin’s strategy of brushing aside Mr. Trump’s threats while lavishing him with praise had not changed.
The Russian leader appeared undeterred even by Mr. Trump’s prediction last month that Ukraine could win back all of its territory with enough support from Europe, and by his belittling of Russia as a “paper tiger” for its inability so far to defeat Ukraine.
Kyiv sees acquiring heavy-duty long-range weapons as a potential means to deter further Russian strikes. Ukraine has already been using domestically produced drones to hit oil refineries and other targets deep inside Russia, and it is developing a long-range cruise missile called the Flamingo that its maker says is capable of flying nearly 2,000 miles. These weapons are free of any restrictions that Ukraine’s Western partners have put on arms that can strike major cities and other targets in Russia.
While Mr. Trump has tried in recent weeks to push Moscow and Kyiv toward resolving the war, Ukraine’s leaders have long argued that Mr. Putin would be unlikely to sit down for serious peace talks unless greater pressure were brought to bear on Russia’s economy and war effort. Mr. Zelensky has said that Washington has received complete information on Ukraine’s requests for different types of weapons to accomplish this objective.
Mr. Putin has warned that any new U.S. weaponry provided to Ukraine would drag the United States deeper into the war. The Biden administration, after initial hesitation, repeatedly called Mr. Putin’s bluff as it provided increasingly sophisticated arms to Ukraine in the first three years of Mr. Putin’s full-scale invasion, which began in early 2022.
On Thursday, Mr. Putin made a similar argument when asked about the possible provision of Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine.
“Will this damage our relations, in which we have seen some light at the end of the tunnel? Of course it will,” Mr. Putin said, arguing that American military personnel would need to assist Ukraine in firing Tomahawk missiles if it were to receive them.
Mr. Putin then reverted to his frequent argument that Russia’s ability to field more soldiers than Ukraine meant that Russia would eventually prevail, no matter the weaponry Kyiv received.
“This won’t change the balance of power on the battlefield,” Mr. Putin said.
On Thursday, aside from his warning on Tomahawks, Mr. Putin appeared focused on praising not just Mr. Trump, but also his conservative supporters in the United States. Mr. Putin appears to see Mr. Trump’s political base as an ally in what the Kremlin casts as Russia’s conflict with liberal elites in Europe and Washington.
Mr. Putin offered condolences over the death of Charlie Kirk, claiming the conservative activist had died fighting for “the very same values” as the Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine.
Russia hit Ukrainian infrastructure overnight Thursday into Friday, launching what the Ukrainian state gas company, Naftogaz, described as the largest attack on its facilities since the beginning of the war.
Ukraine and Greenpeace, the environmental group, have also accused Russia of causing new safety problems at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, a sprawling, Russian-occupied facility near the front line.
The Zaporizhzhia plant has been relying on diesel generators to cool its nuclear fuel since Sept. 23, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. The agency has been negotiating with Russia and Ukraine to restore external electrical power to the plant and has raised alarms about the risks.
“The last line of defense in any nuclear power plant are the emergency diesel generators,” Rafael Grossi, the agency’s director general, said in an interview. “You do not want to be on the last line on a facility like this.”
Mr. Putin, in Thursday’s comments, blamed Ukraine for artillery strikes that had cut off external power to the plant, and added another threat: “They still have operating nuclear power plants on their side, so what’s stopping us from responding in kind? Let them think about that.”
Andrew E. Kramer contributed reporting from Kyiv.
Anton Troianovski is the Moscow bureau chief for The Times. He writes about Russia, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia.
Maria Varenikova covers Ukraine and its war with Russia.
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