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License for Patriot production
President Donald Trump said the United States would grant Ukraine a license to manufacture Patriot missile interceptors during a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey.
Trump told Zelenskyy, “We’re going to give a license to you to make Patriots,” and said, “It’s a defensive weapon, which I like better than an offensive weapon.”
The announcement came as Russian strikes continued, with the Honolulu Star-Advertiser citing that Russia fired ballistic missiles at Kyiv again overnight, a third attack on the Ukrainian capital in less than a week.
The same report said Ukraine’s air defenses intercepted 139 of the 169 drones during overnight strikes but were again unable to down any of the five ballistic missiles used by Russia, according to air force data.
Ukrainian ambassador to Washington Olha Stefanishyna said the Ankara meeting sent “several important strategic signals” about collaboration between the United States and Ukraine.
Timeline, leverage, and debate
Trump said he did not provide specifics on how the missiles would be made in Ukraine, but he predicted Ukraine could begin producing its own quickly and told Zelenskyy, “You work with the company. They have a great ability to produce weapons, pretty complex weapons.”
Asked whether the United States would send additional Patriot interceptors immediately, Trump said “some” could be sent immediately and added, “We have Patriots, but we don’t have that many. We need them for ourselves too.”
Michael McFaul, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia, said on X, “But Ukraine needs missile defense interceptors now, and can’t wait for the production of them in the future.”
The Guardian reported that Zelenskyy said Ukraine and the US reached a political agreement on licences for production of PAC-3 Patriot interceptors and that key supplies of the missiles were to arrive in the next few days.
Zelenskyy also cautioned in the Guardian briefing that it could take a year or more for Ukraine to produce Patriot interceptor missiles.
What’s at stake next
The Guardian said the Kremlin described the licence deal as reflecting what it called Washington’s “ambivalence,” while noting it appreciated Trump’s efforts to help broker a peace deal to end the war that Russia launched over four years ago.
In the same briefing, UN political affairs chief Rosemary DiCarlo told the Security Council that Russian strikes killed at least 265 civilians in Ukraine and injured 1,816 in June, the highest combined casualty count since the first months after Moscow’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Zelenskyy said Russia struck an ammunition warehouse during its attack on the Kyiv region earlier this week, and Ukrainian officials said 10 people were killed in Vyshneve and hundreds of houses were damaged.
Al Jazeera framed the licences as a response to depleted stock of “the pricey United States-made interceptors,” saying Trump offered hope by giving Kyiv a licence to make them.
Al Jazeera also quoted a Bremen University researcher, Nikolay Mitrokhin, saying in the short-term perspective Ukraine “perhaps, gets nothing,” while adding that “access to US technologies can significantly speed up or develop Ukraine’s domestic program of ballistic and counter-ballistic missiles.”
