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Trump told reporters he was N’not really” considering a deal to sell Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, but could change his mind
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Donald Trump has said that Russia is carrying out “underground” nuclear weapons tests as he doubled down on his announcement last week that the US would restart their own nuclear testing.
Speaking to Norah O’Donnell on 60 Minutes, he said that “Russia’s testing, and China’s testing, but they don’t talk about it”, adding they were doing them “underground where people don’t know exactly what’s happening with the test.”
When Ms O’Donnell tried to clarify if he meant that Russia and China were definitely testing their nuclear weapons, he said: “Russia’s testing nuclear weapons.
“Russia did make– a little bit of a threat the other day when they said they were gonna do certain forms of a different level of testing.”
It comes after he has now backed away from the idea of giving Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine for carrying out strikes inside Russia, at least for now. Trump has publicly toyed with the idea of providing the long-range missiles to Ukraine, saying that Volodymyr Zelensky would like him to add Tomahawks to Kyiv‘s arsenal. Tomahawk missiles have a range of 2,500km, enough to strike deep inside Russia, including Moscow.
The Tomahawk cruise missile has been in the US military’s inventory since the 1980s. While slow by missile standards, the cruise missile flies around 100 feet (about 30 meters) off the ground, making it harder to detect by defence systems.
The missile also boasts an impressive range of around 1,000 miles and precision guidance systems that make it the go-to weapon for striking targets that are deep inland or in hostile territory. The long-range nature of the missiles would put Moscow in Ukraine’s range, a significant threat to Russia.
Questions have been raised about how Tomahawks could be employed in Ukraine. They are launched almost exclusively from ships or submarines and Ukraine doesn’t possess a Navy with ships capable of carrying the 20-foot-long missile.
The US Army has been developing a platform to launch the missile from the ground, but some experts have that the capability was still far from ready, even for US forces.
US president Donald Trump has said that Russia is carrying out “underground” nuclear weapons tests as he doubled down on his announcement last week that the US would restart their own nuclear testing.
Speaking to Norah O’Donnell on 60 Minutes, he said that “Russia’s testing, and China’s testing, but they don’t talk about it”, adding they were doing them “underground where people don’t know exactly what’s happening with the test.”
When Ms O’Donnell tried to clarify if he meant that Russia and China were definitely testing their nuclear weapons, he said: “Russia’s testing nuclear weapons.
“Russia did make– a little bit of a threat the other day when they said they were gonna do certain forms of a different level of testing.”
Drones have been seen flying over a Belgian military base near the Dutch border for a third night in a row, according to the country’s defence minister Theo Francken.
Police in Belgium are investigating the sightings following reports on Saturday of drones flying over the Kleine Brogel air base in north-east Belgium, Francken said in a post on X. A helicopter and police vehicles pursued but failed to capture the drone, and a drone jammer was unable to intercept it, he said.
“It was not a simple overflight, but a clear command targeting Kleine Brogel,” Francken said.
Francken told Belgian radio on Monday that it looked like an espionage operation, but said he would not speculate on who could be behind it.
“I have some ideas, but I’m going to be cautious,” he added.
NATO countries have been on high alert in recent weeks after drone sightings and other air incursions, including at airports in Copenhagen, Munich and in the Baltic region. Some 20 Russian drones entered Polish airspace in September.
The European Commission last month proposed four European defence projects, including a counter-drone system and a plan to fortify the eastern border with Russia, as part of a drive to get the continent ready to defend itself by 2030.
Russian troops do not have full control of any district in the eastern city of Pokrovsk, the Ukrainian military said on Monday.
“The invaders continue to attack in small groups of up to five soldiers, without using armoured vehicles,” the operation task force responsible for Ukraine’s eastern front line said on Facebook.
Russia said earlier on Monday that its troops had advanced in Pokrovsk, a transport and logistics hub that Russian forces have been seeking to capture for over a year.
Kyiv’s troops have advanced further near Dobropillia, north of Pokrovsk, Ukraine’s army chief has said.
It comes as the Russian Defence Ministry has claimed that its forces had advanced in the Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk and had carried out massive strikes overnight on Ukrainian military-industrial sites.
Ukraine’s military units are competing with each other by launching deadly drone attacks to earn points that can be used to buy more weapons.
The video game style rewards system is proving to be very popular, Ukraine’s first deputy prime minister said, with hundreds of units participating. Launched a year ago, it is now being expanded to reconnaissance, artillery and logistics operations, according to reports.
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Russia wants to take the whole of the Donbas region, which comprises the Luhansk and Donetsk provinces. Ukraine still controls about 10% of Donbas – an area of about 5,000 square km (1,930 square miles) in western Donetsk.
Capturing Pokrovsk, dubbed “the gateway to Donetsk” by Russian media, and Kostiantynivka to its northeast which Russian forces are also trying to envelop, would give Moscow a platform to drive north towards the two biggest remaining Ukrainian-controlled cities in Donetsk – Kramatorsk and Sloviansk. It would also give Moscow its most important single territorial gain inside Ukraine since it took the ruined city of Avdiivka in early 2024.
Russian President Vladimir Putin says Donbas is now legally part of Russia. Kyiv and most Western nations reject Moscow’s seizure of the territory as an illegal land grab. Some Western military analysts, like Rob Lee, a senior fellow at the U.S.-based Foreign Policy Research Institute, say that capturing Pokrovsk would hand Russia an important win, especially if it can do it by the end of the year.
But though important for operational reasons, Lee says taking Pokrovsk would still leave Russia a lot of work to do when it came to taking control of the rest of Donetsk and the two important fortress cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.
The Tomahawk cruise missile has been in the US military’s inventory since the 1980s. While slow by missile standards, the cruise missile flies around 100 feet (about 30 meters) off the ground, making it harder to detect by defence systems.
The missile also boasts an impressive range of around 1,000 miles and precision guidance systems that make it the go-to weapon for striking targets that are deep inland or in hostile territory. The long-range nature of the missiles would put Moscow in Ukraine’s range, a significant threat to Russia.
Questions have been raised about how Tomahawks could be employed in Ukraine. They are launched almost exclusively from ships or submarines and Ukraine doesn’t possess a Navy with ships capable of carrying the 20-foot-long missile.
The US Army has been developing a platform to launch the missile from the ground, but some experts have that the capability was still far from ready, even for US forces.
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