The Tomahawk red line
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The Tomahawk red line is John Kiriakou's assessment, given on 22 October 2025, of the proposal to supply Ukraine with long-range American cruise missiles, and of the military situation that makes the proposal moot in his view.

The state of the war

Kiriakou's factual basis is attributed rather than his own. "I was talking to Peter Kuznick about this the other day. Peter is the history professor at American University, chairman of the nuclear studies program. He's one of the country's leading experts on Russia."

Kuznick's judgement, as relayed: "the Ukrainians are losing. They just can't keep this up. There aren't enough people to fight."

The manpower detail is the part Kiriakou repeats for emphasis. "They're snatching old men off the street, literally snatching them off the street and just sending them to the front lines." And at the other end of the age range, "the young people are fleeing. They just can't keep this up."

The conclusion follows: "there's going to have to be some kind of negotiated settlement. And whatever the settlement happens to be at the end, the Ukrainians are going to come out on the short side of it."

The settlement being discussed

The shape on the table, in his account, was a ceasefire along an armistice line, leaving Russia in de facto control of what it holds on the Ukrainian side of the border without that territory formally becoming Russian, "which is going to have to include Crimea, of course, which is a real sticking point for the Ukrainians."

The missiles

Against that background, Kiriakou treats the missile question as an escalation with no corresponding gain, and notes that the president was resisting it. "Trump does not want to give these cruise missiles to Ukraine."

His own reasoning identifies two distinct dangers rather than one. "That would so worsen the situation to give the Ukrainians Tomahawk cruise missiles that it would risk involving NATO. It would risk a tactical nuclear strike on Ukrainian positions."

His verdict is six words: "It's a very bad idea."

The position is consistent with the settlement he had already forecast months earlier, in which Russia retains the eastern territories and Crimea, and with his standing view that weapons which extend a losing war's duration are not aid to the people fighting it.

See also

- Kiriakou's Ukraine settlement prediction
- Ukraine as a proxy war
- Russia-Ukraine war origins
- Major non-NATO ally status for Ukraine
