Ukraine War · updated 1h ago · 3 min read
Zelensky Says Trump Authorizes Ukraine To Manufacture Patriot Missiles
Trump told Zelenskiy he will grant Ukraine a Patriot missile manufacturing license. Zelenskiy says the decision is final and concrete agreements exist.
Whether Trump confirmed the licence agreement.
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Ukrinform
“President Trump had emphasized that he had made the final decision and that Ukraine would receive licenses”Read the original ↗
CNN double-checks Trump while Ukrinform amplifies Zelensky’s claim of Trump’s final decision, creating an attribution double standard.
License, but Trump hedges
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that during a meeting with President Donald Trump, Trump told him that Ukraine “will receive a license to manufacture Patriot missiles,” but Trump declined to say on Saturday whether he agreed to allow Ukraine to manufacture Patriot missiles to fend off Russian attacks.
“Ukraine ‘will receive a license to manufacture Patriot missiles.’”
Trump told CNN, “We talked about a lot of different subjects, and many of those subjects… very strong agreement,” and he added, “But you know what I want him to do? CMake a deal. I want him to settle with Putin, and I want Putin to settle with him.”
CNN said the two leaders met on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York earlier this week, and Zelensky described Russian President Vladimir Putin as “patient zero” during his speech before the General Assembly.C
CNN also said Patriot interceptors are among the few weapons capable of taking ballistic missiles down, and it linked the recent global supply crunch to serious effects on Ukraine’s supply.C
CNN reported that without Patriot interceptors, Ukraine struggled to fend off a recent onslaught of Russian attacks, including seven deaths on Friday during a series of daytime drone strikes in Kyiv.C
Zelensky says Trump agreed
Volodymyr Zelenskiy told reporters that Trump “stressed to me that yes, he has made a final decision. Ukraine will receive licenses to produce Patriot missiles,” and he framed the statement as coming from their latest meeting.
Euronews reported that Zelenskiy added, “I’m grateful that, in the meantime, our teams continue working to launch Patriot interceptor production in Ukraine,” in a Tuesday post on social media.
ABC said Ukraine requested the license for Patriot defense systems since the Joe Biden era, and it said the request became more urgent during Donald Trump’s presidency.
ABC reported that Zelenskiy said Trump “stressed to me that yes, he has made a final decision. Ukraine will receive licenses to produce Patriot missiles,” after the leaders met in New York on Tuesday.
ABC also said Ukraine is preparing for another difficult winter season with a dire shortage of interceptors for Patriot, and it quoted Zelenskiy saying, “this year we have two and a half times fewer interceptors than in 2025.”
Winter stakes and timelines
ABC said the first complete Ukrainian interceptors could arrive by late 2027 or 2028, and it also cited a previous calculation by The Washington Post placing the time to establish the first pilot production line between 18 and 24 months. France 24 reported that even with licenses, establishing industrial capacity would take more than a year and would not meet Kyiv’s immediate needs, while Zelenskiy said Kyiv needs 5% of the United States Patriot interceptors to get through the winter. France 24 also said Zelenskiy noted Kyiv is working on its own anti-ballistic systems called Freya, and it described Patriot as the only ones capable of reliably countering the ballistic missiles Russia launches at Ukraine.
ABC said Ukraine’s efforts are yielding results, and it described Zelenskiy’s message that “We are accelerating production,” alongside reporting that drone strikes with jet engines have been common in daylight in rear-city areas, especially in Kyiv. ABC reported that the Ministry of Digital Transformation said that after the September 23 attack, up to 100,000 homes in Kyiv and the capital region experienced connection problems, and it quoted Andrii Sybiha saying Moscow’s bombardments of “Ukrainian data centers” aim to “disrupt the flow of information.”