Tomahawks. A specter for Ukraine: Medvedev’s nuclear lies [COMMENTARY]

The former Russian president, in a sharply worded post on a social network, stated that a possible delivery of Tomahawks to Ukraine could “end badly for everyone,” and above all for Donald Trump himself. According to Medvedev, it has been explained “a hundred times,” in terms understandable even for the “star-spangled uncle,” that after Tomahawks are launched it would be impossible to tell whether they carry conventional or nuclear warheads. From his remarks one can read that the Russians might treat a Tomahawk strike as a nuclear strike — and take the same measures in response.

However, Medvedev is lying, and regarding several matters. First, there currently exists no Tomahawk cruise missile carrying a nuclear payload. All W80 nuclear warheads for Tomahawk missiles were long ago (during the first Barack Obama administration) destroyed — by around 2013. The former U.S. president decided to unilaterally withdraw one of the two types of non-strategic nuclear weapons (the other being the B61 bombs) roughly at the same time the New START treaty was signed with Russia, which led to a reduction of strategic nuclear weapons to a maximum of 1,550 deployed warheads.

More — let us add — American than Russian, because before the New START treaty was signed in 2011 the Americans had significantly more strategic nuclear loads than Russia. Moreover, the U.S. even had to reduce the number of Trident missiles on submarines by dismantling some missile silos to meet the treaty’s requirements. And Barack Obama, although not obligated to do so, decided to withdraw the Tomahawks as well in pursuit of the “dream” of a “world free of nuclear weapons.” And this was already after the Russian invasion of Georgia and the first signals of Russia breaking arms-control agreements.

A few years later Russia formally violated the INF Treaty, which banned the deployment of intermediate- and short-range ballistic and land-based cruise missiles. As a result, the U.S., with the support of all allied countries, withdrew from that agreement. U.S. and NATO authorities have consistently and unequivocally emphasized that they intend to rebuild capabilities only for land-based missiles with conventional warheads.

Even in the period from the end of the Cold War until the Obama presidency, when Tomahawks with nuclear warheads were still in service, nuclear warheads were stored separately, exclusively on the American continent (previously they had been carried by ships during deployments). So when Tomahawks were used, for example, to strike terrorist targets in Afghanistan, no one suggested that the Americans intended to carry out a nuclear strike. Russians today do the same with weapon systems that could potentially carry nuclear weapons but are used for conventional strikes, because nuclear warheads are under the strict control of the 12th Directorate of the Russian Ministry of Defence. But today there simply are no nuclear warheads for Tomahawks. For more than a decade it has been a purely conventional system, and the Russians know this perfectly well.

Of course the Russians, in their propaganda, use other theses about American missiles: on the one hand they say they are able to shoot them down (as Vladimir Putin himself has said), and on the other they claim that American soldiers are needed to operate them, so delivery would be tantamount to U.S. entry into the conflict. Previously they said the same about ATACMS missiles.

It is also worth recalling another false Russian narrative concerning Tomahawks. Moscow long before the opening of the American missile-defense base in Redzikowo claimed that it is an offensive system and that Tomahawks could be deployed there. Except that the system itself would have to be modified (which is not planned), and besides, after placing Tomahawks the Redzikowo base would lose the ability to perform its basic task (because Tomahawks would have to replace the interceptor missiles). For years the Russians have been “scaring” people with various uses of Tomahawks that do not take place. And now also with Tomahawk missiles carrying nuclear warheads that have not existed for a decade.