Zelenskyy on Tomahawk leak: Nothing confidential between partners

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has stated that Ukraine's request for Tomahawk missiles, which was reported in the press, was confidential information between Kyiv and the White House.

Commenting on recent media reports suggesting that Ukraine requested long-range Tomahawk missiles from the US as part of its Victory Plan, President Zelenskyy clarified that this information was confidential between Ukraine and the White House. 

"You can see what’s going on now in the media. They said that Ukraine wants or wanted a lot of missiles, like Tomahawk, etc. But it was confidential information between Ukraine and the White House. How to understand these messages? So, it means, between partners, there are no confidential things," he stated in an interview with media of Nordic countries.

Zelenskyy further explained that he had asked international partners for a package of long-range weapons – as one of the points of his Victory Plan – with the understanding that Ukraine would only use them if Russia continued its aggression and did not halt further escalation. 

"I said this is a preventive method. They said to me: ‘This is escalation’," he added.

Recently, media reports suggested that, as part of the undisclosed details of the Victory Plan, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy supposedly requested long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles from the US.

An unnamed US official indicated that Zelenskyy sought these missiles as a component of a non-nuclear deterrent package.