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The Kremlin continues its reflective control campaign aimed at preventing the US from selling Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine. Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov stated on October 7 that the US sending Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine would be a “serious escalation” that would not change the situation on the frontline in Ukraine and noted that Tomahawk missiles can carry a nuclear warhead. Peskov stated that Putin made his position “unequivocally” clear on how Russia would respond to such action, referring to Putin’s October 2 and 5 threats against the US provision of Tomahawk missiles. Putin threateningly warned the United States against selling Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine on October 2, claiming that American military personnel would have to directly participate in Ukrainian Tomahawk strikes. Putin later threatened on October 5 that US provisions of Tomahawk missiles would “lead to the destruction” of the “emerging positive trend” in US-Russian relations. ISW continues to assess that the Kremlin is attempting to portray potential US Tomahawk deliveries to Ukraine as a dangerous escalation to deter the United States from sending such weapons to Ukraine.
Other Russian officials are echoing Putin’s threats. Russian Security Council Deputy Chairperson Dmitry Medvedev absurdly claimed on October 7 that Ukraine would use US-made Tomahawk missiles to strike Paris, Berlin, and Warsaw and that US President Donald Trump ”should understand that.” Russian Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) Head and Duma Deputy Leonid Slutsky claimed that Trump would greatly increase the risk of starting a third world war if the US sold Tomahawks to Ukraine and that Russia would not be responsible for such increased risk. Russian State Duma Deputy Maksim Ivanov and Russian Senator Vladimir Dzhabarov similarly claimed that Russia would be forced to launch a “preemptive” strike against Ukraine and that “not only Ukraine will suffer” if the US sends Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine. The Kremlin has previously conducted similar influence operations when the United States was discussing sending Ukraine Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS), High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), F-16 fighter jets, and Abrams tanks, and has routinely successfully delayed the provision of Western weapons to Ukraine. Previous Western weapons provisions and Ukrainian strikes using US-provided long-range weapons systems, however, did not trigger an escalatory Russian reaction, and the West and Ukraine have repeatedly violated Russia’s alleged “red lines” in the past with no resulting escalation. These recent Russian threats about Tomahawk missile provisions are part of Russia’s wider reflexive control campaign that aims to coerce Russia’s opponents to make policy decisions that actually benefit Russia.
Leaked Russian estimates of Russian killed in action (KIA) to wounded in action (WIA) rates in Ukraine underscore the impact of increased tactical drone usage in Ukraine and the extent to which drones complicate ground advances and casualty evacuation. Ukraine’s “I Want to Live” initiative published leaked Russian data on October 6 detailing Russian military casualties from January to August 2025. The data indicates that Russian forces suffered a total of 281,550 casualties of which: 86,744 were killed in action (KIA), including 1,583 officers and 8,633 penal recruits; 33,996 are missing in action (MIA), including 11,427 penal recruits; 158,529 were wounded in action (WIA), including 6,356 officers and 16,489 penal recruits; and 2,311 were captured. Ukraine’s “I Want to Live” initiative’s data on total Russian military casualties from January to August 2025 is similar to Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief General Oleksandr Syrskyi’s report that Russian forces had suffered 299,210 casualties since January 2025 as of September 9. Ukraine’s “I Want to Live” initiative reported that Russia’s casualty ratio is one KIA for every 1.3 WIA, likely due to insufficient tactical medicine training and the Russian military command’s frequent failure to sufficiently rehabilitate WIA. The standard KIA to WIA ratio is one-to-three, which demonstrates that the Russian forces currently appear to have an abnormally high KIA to WIA ratio (1:1.3) likely due to the efficacy of pervasive tactical-level drone strikes that have created kill zones (an area immediately near the frontline where a mass of tactical strike and reconnaissance drones pose an elevated risk to any equipment or personnel that enters the area) throughout the theater, complicating both sides ability to evacuate casualties and triage WIA. ISW has previously observed reports that the Russian military command is struggling to and frequently refusing to recover WIA, likely due to the threat of Ukrainian drone strikes that are significantly complicating movement on the battlefield.
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