November 28, 2025: Ukraine has been seeking American Tomahawk cruise missiles. These 1.3 ton missiles are 5.56 meters long and have a 310 kg warhead containing 120 kg of high explosives. Top speed is 920 kilometers an hour and maximum range is classified but believed to be nearly 2,000 kilometers. Ukraine wants Tomahawks to attack Russian weapons factories that are too far from Ukraine to be hit with any current Ukrainian missiles. Two key targets are the Geran long range missile factory that is 1,500 kilometers from Ukraine and a ballistic missile plant. Both of these plants cover a large area that would require at least 150 Tomahawks to inflict enough damage to shut the plants down. Getting that many Tomahawks past Russian air defenses would be unlikely. That means the risks of completing the mission are high and not worth the cost of the Tomahawks, which is about $3 million each.

It is more likely that Ukraine could carry out these long range cruise missile attacks successfully using the Flamingo cruise missile. Ukraine has been developing this missile, with a 3,000 kilometers range and a 1.1 ton warhead. It entered service this year in small numbers. Ukraine hopes to increase Flamingo production to about a hundred a month.

Meanwhile, Ukraine is doing quite well with several other similar missiles. Two years ago, Ukrainian warplanes using the 1.3-ton Storm Shadow cruise missiles were quite successful. Max range is 550 kilometers, and top speed is 1,100 kilometers an hour. There is a 450 kg high explosive warhead and multiple guidance systems, including GPS, INS/Inertial Navigation System and terrain recognition. GPS can be jammed but the other two systems cannot. The missile has stealth features but is not invisible to radars. Storm Shadow is vulnerable to air defense systems. The Russians are familiar with Storm Shadow because it has been in service since 2003 and used since 2011 in Libya, Iraq, Syria Yemen and now Ukraine. Britain and France are sending more missiles like Storm Shadow and Scalp, but not enough to do decisive damage to Russian weapons plants and economic targets.

Since Ukraine is already producing nearly 80 percent of the weapons it uses, getting behind the Flamingo project, or something similar, may be the best way forward. The Ukrainians know what they need and are able to build these weapons quickly and in large quantities. Defending their country is important to Ukrainian weapons manufacturers. Nations financing the Ukrainian war effort might be most effective in providing Ukraine enough money to develop and build their own weapons.

Russia also has Kh-101 cruise missiles that are like the Tomahawk. Over a thousand Kh-101s have been used against Ukraine. Components for these missiles come from 70 different manufacturers, many of them within range of current Ukrainian drones and missiles. Ukraine wants the United States and NATO to increase the economic sanctions on these companies. Some of these Russian firms appear to have avoided the impact of the sanctions. Ukraine wants the sanctions to be fine-tuned to do the most damage to the 70 firms making the Kh-101s available for attacks on Ukrainian targets.