Tomahawk, Barracuda supplies to Ukraine “nothing more than PR stunt” — military analyst

Military analyst Vasyl Pekhno shared his opinions on Espreso TV.

“I’m extremely skeptical about this information, very skeptical, although I also saw the Wall Street Journal piece about Tomahawk. I believe it’s nothing more than a PR action. That’s my personal feeling, because to transfer Tomahawk missiles you don’t just need a missile that can be fired from existing infrastructure in Ukraine. It’s a missile that requires its own infrastructure, launchers. There is a land-launch version, but those Typhoon launchers are, to put it mildly, not very popular to operate. To actually fire Tomahawks you need a naval base, you need surface ships or submarines. Somehow, in those publications and in statements by various experts, including American ones, this fact is somehow avoided — they are not transferring submarines or surface ships. That’s why I treat it as nothing more than a PR action, absolutely nothing more. Maybe an element of informational pressure, but at the moment, in my view, this is absolutely unsubstantiated information about Tomahawk,” he said.

At the same time, Vasyl Pekhno believes that transferring Barracuda missiles is more realistic than Tomahawk, since they can be launched from F-16s. But he does not expect these weapons to be handed over to Ukraine.

“As for Barracuda, this story might be more interesting, although, again, there are simply a billion unclear and ambiguous questions about what this missile actually is. If Tomahawk is truly battle-proven, a high-quality cruise missile capable of delivering very precise strikes, then for Barracuda there is so far only a presentation video — nothing more, although it’s claimed that mass production has been set up in Taiwan. Development and production date to 2024, so this is a very, very new missile. Its essence is that it’s not so expensive — a bit over $200,000 per missile, $216,000 each. It’s designed for mass production to overwhelm enemy air defenses. And, by the way, it can be launched from platforms like the F-16. So I’d be more inclined to believe in that, but again, we don’t know quantities or readiness. Now new stories will start that Taiwan, given its own threats, will not want to transfer anything to us. Yes, this information exists, yes, it's nice, but frankly, I don’t expect these weapons to be transferred to Ukraine. They are nothing more than elements of informational-psychological and diplomatic pressure, including on Russia. That’s my view,” the military analyst added.