President Donald Trump said Wednesday that the United States was working to allow Ukraine to produce Patriot air defense systems, potentially offering Kyiv a new source of protection from Russian missile attacks.
Speaking alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, Trump unveiled the emerging plans to grant Ukraine a license to produce the sophisticated, U.S.-designed weapon. But the arrangement won’t address Kyiv’s immediate shortage of the interceptors it needs to defend against Russian ballistic missiles.
“One of the things we’re going to be talking about is we’re going to give you a license to make Patriots,” Trump told Zelenskyy. “That’s pretty cool, right?”
The remarks came after a massive Russian attack on Monday killed at least 22 people, and Ukraine’s air force said all 29 ballistic missiles fired in the barrage had reached their targets.
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Trump was asked if he would be willing to provide Ukraine with Patriot missiles in the near term.
“We don’t have that many,” Trump replied. “We need them for ourselves, too.”
He expressed confidence that Ukraine’s talent and technical know-how would allow the country to “start making them very quickly.”
But creating a new production line for one of the world’s most complex air defense weapons would be a huge undertaking. U.S. manufacturers, under pressure from the Trump administration to unclog industrial bottlenecks, are struggling to expand Patriot production rapidly enough to replenish U.S. stockpiles while meeting demand from Ukraine and other allies.
Trump didn’t specify whether the emerging deal to produce Patriots referred to launchers, interceptor missiles, or components of the system. Trump also acknowledged that the idea had not been worked out with the U.S. defense contractors that produce the system.
“We haven’t informed the company of that yet, but that’ll work out all right,” Trump said. “Sure, they’ll be thrilled.”
Tom Karako, director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Trump’s announcement was a positive development but also underscored that Ukraine is unlikely to receive Patriot interceptors from U.S. stocks anytime soon.
“I’ve got a driver’s license, but that doesn’t necessarily give me the car,” Karako said of the potential licensing arrangement.
He estimated it would take several years to get Ukrainian production running even if the U.S. helped provide a turnkey facility — an option Trump did not mention — because Ukraine would also need to establish the supply chain needed to feed the production line.
Karako said one possibility would be for Ukraine to produce the PAC-2 interceptor, a larger, multimission Patriot missile designed to strike aircraft as well as ballistic missiles. Germany is already moving into PAC-2 production through a partnership with missile maker MBDA. The newer PAC-3 interceptor would present complications because its seeker technology is sensitive and closely controlled by the U.S.
Patriot production has increased from roughly 300 to about 600 missiles a year, while the Pentagon and the defense industry want that to increase in the coming years to an annual rate of 2,000, according to Mark Cancian of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“You’re talking about maybe 2030 to do that,” he said. “That just takes a long time to get the facilities in there, and then get the production actually occurring.”
The pressure on Patriot supplies has intensified during the U.S. conflict with Iran. CSIS estimated that American forces used as many as 1,430 Patriot interceptors during the first 39 days of the military campaign, from an estimated inventory of about 2,330. The think tank projected that rebuilding U.S. stocks to prewar levels could take until mid-2029.
Zelenskyy said in May on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that he had asked the Biden and Trump administrations for production licenses to boost supplies for Ukraine and other countries.
“We will increase the production of Patriot missiles,” Zelenskyy said at the time. “It will be very helpful for us, it will be very helpful for Middle East, for everybody whom United States will decide to help.”
Trump on Wednesday framed the prospect of Ukraine producing Patriots as a way for it to take more responsibility for meeting its own needs.
“This way you can’t complain that we’re not giving them enough,” Trump said. “I said, ‘Make them yourself.’”
Zelenskyy welcomed the idea, calling the Patriot “the best antiballistic system” available.
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