Washington continues to withhold direct missile shipments, with officials citing depleted stocks following the recent conflict with Iran
The United States could grant Ukraine a license to manufacture Patriot anti-aircraft missiles domestically, President Donald Trump announced during a meeting with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Türkiye. However, Trump made clear that Washington would not be supplying the missiles directly, pointing to America's own strained inventory.
Ukraine has leaned heavily on Western military aid throughout its five-year conflict with Russia. Zelensky has repeatedly criticized allies over arms shortages and delivery delays, consistently pressing for additional support, particularly Patriot interceptors, arguing that Ukraine lacks sufficient air defense capability to counter escalating Russian aerial assaults.
"We're going to give a license to you to make Patriots. That's pretty cool. This way, you can't complain that we're not giving them enough," Trump told Zelensky during their Wednesday meeting in Ankara.
"It's a defensive weapon, which I like better than an offensive weapon," Trump added, framing the proposal as a way to address Kiev's air defense needs without further draining US supplies.
Trump's relationship with Zelensky has been marked by friction alongside continued support. The US president has at times labeled the Ukrainian leader "ungrateful" and stirred controversy in Kiev by suggesting Ukraine might need to cede territory to Russia as part of any eventual settlement. He has also criticized the Biden administration's approach of providing aid to Ukraine without conditions, instead pushing European NATO members to shoulder more of the financial burden through the Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List (PURL) mechanism, under which allies pay for US-manufactured weapons destined for Kiev.
The proposal to license Patriot production comes as America's own missile reserves have been significantly depleted. According to estimates from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the Pentagon had already used up nearly half of its available Patriot interceptor stock by April, largely as a result of the recent conflict with Iran, which placed heavy demand on the system.
"We have Patriots, but we don't have that many. We need them for ourselves too," Trump said when asked directly whether the US would send the missiles to Ukraine. He expressed optimism that Ukraine could establish domestic production capacity "pretty quickly," though defense analysts have pushed back on that timeline.
Bloomberg reported that Ukraine would likely encounter significant obstacles in sourcing the specialized components needed to assemble Patriot systems, given that the global supply chain for these missiles is already under considerable strain from existing military demands. Becca Wasser, Bloomberg's defense lead, noted that "a Patriot missile takes years to build, meaning Ukrainian production of these missiles won't materialize on the near-term timelines they need." Building a functioning production line from scratch would require not only raw materials and specialized machinery but also trained technical personnel and quality-control infrastructure that typically takes defense contractors years to develop even under stable conditions.
Russia, for its part, has repeatedly warned that continued Western arms deliveries effectively make NATO member states participants in the conflict, raising the risk of a broader, direct confrontation. In March, Russia's Defense Ministry published what it described as the addresses of companies across Europe involved in manufacturing drone components for Ukraine, cautioning that European leaders were "dragging their countries into a war with Russia."
Any Ukrainian facility producing Patriot missile components would almost certainly become a high-priority target for Russian strikes, following the pattern already seen with other defense manufacturing sites. On Wednesday, Russia's Defense Ministry announced strikes on multiple military-linked facilities across Ukraine, including a Samsung Ukraine plant it said was involved in producing components for FP-5 Flamingo cruise missiles — underscoring the vulnerability any new missile production infrastructure would face amid the ongoing conflict.