For several months, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been requesting a license from the United States to develop Patriot missile interceptors.
For most of that time, President Donald Trump has gone back and forth about whether he would follow through on that promise.
The Army test fires a Patriot missile in a recent test. The Patriot missile system is a ground-based, mobile missile defense interceptor deployed by the United States to detect, track and engage unmanned aerial vehicles, cruise missiles, and short-range and tactical ballistic missiles. Patriot, along with other missile defense systems, are included in the Army Air and Missile Defense 2028, which provides the Army’s overarching vision for the AMD force, describes how the AMD force is postured to support the Army and joint forces, and articulates what must be accomplished to achieve the 2028 desired end state of preventing and defeating adversary air and missile attacks through a combination of deterrence, active and passive defense, and support to attack operations. (U.S. Army photo)
Patriot Missile Interceptor Test. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
In July, Defense News reported that Trump told Zelensky, during a public portion of their meeting at the NATO summit in Ankara, that the license would be granted.
However, at the end of that month, at the cabinet meeting at Camp David, Trump appeared to back off the promise, amid reports at the time that, after months of the Iran war, the U.S. was itself running low on munitions stockpiles.
“We have not agreed to that,” Trump said of the Patriot missile promise at the Camp David meeting. He also said the U.S. could not grant the technology to another country, as “they could someday turn on you.”
The previous month, the Financial Times reported that the prospect of Trump making such defensive weapons available to Ukraine had not been well received at the Kremlin, with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov saying Trump was stepping back from the role of “objective mediator” and siding with Ukraine more openly.
Lavrov had complained that Trump was doing things like praising Ukraine’s drone attacks, talking about making Patriot missiles available, and pushing further sanctions on Russia.
By mid-August, the companies that make the weapons, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, reportedly threw cold water on the deal because they feared Kyiv could emerge as a defense competitor.
German soldiers assigned to Surface Air and Missile Defense Wing 1 fire the Patriot weapons system at the NATO Missile Firing Installation (NAMFI) during Artemis Strike Nov. 7 in Chania, Greece. Artemis Strike is a German-led multinational air defense exercise. German soldiers Over 200 U.S. soldiers and approximately 650 German airmen will be participating in the realistic training within a combined construct, exercise the rigors associated with force projection and educate operators on their air missile defense systems. (Photo By Officer Candidate Sebastian Apel, Air Defence Missile Group 24)
One Republican official on Capitol Hill told The Atlantic that, under a joint production deal, the Ukrainians would “find a way to improve the Patriot” and produce it faster and cheaper.
And now, Trump has reversed course again and made the “final decision” to grant Ukraine Patriot licenses anyway.
New Decision
Per Euronews, Zelensky told reporters this week that Trump told him, when they met at the United Nations General Assembly, that the president had made a “final decision” and Ukraine would receive the licenses.
In a social media post, Zelensky said, “There are concrete agreements regarding Patriot licenses,” and outlined next steps for potential talks with Russia, including a potential trilateral meeting with the United States, Ukraine, and Russia.
So how soon will Ukraine have the missile manufacturing online? Probably not very soon.
“These Things Aren’t Like Flipping on a Light Switch”
ABC News quoted experts this week as saying that manufacturing Patriot missiles for Ukraine would likely take years. Some even called it an “optics play” by the White House that would do little to help Ukraine in the near future.
Trump, the report said, had also not yet told the manufacturers, as of Wednesday, that he had decided to grant the license.
Building the weapons will take years and will also require Ukraine to overcome what experts called logistics and supply-chain hurdles.
Bradley Bowman, a scholar at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told ABC News that when it comes to setting up such manufacturing processes, “these things aren’t like flipping on a light switch.”
Such efforts take a long time, ABC made clear. Germany, the outlet noted, began developing Patriot-like PAC-2 GEM-T interceptors in 2024, and they’re not expected to reach the production line until next year.
In addition, demand for the missiles remains high.
Meanwhile, as Ukrainska Pravda reported, some European Union countries could potentially give up their spot in the queue for Patriot missiles. Next week, at a meeting in Brussels, the EU defense ministers will discuss how that will work.
While the United States will make some missiles available as part of the Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List (PURL) program, the report said another country might decide to swap places in line with Ukraine.
In addition, EU member states might opt to transfer Patriot interceptor missiles directly to Ukraine.
Spain and Greece were named in the report as countries that could potentially take that deal, in which they would provide Ukraine with the missiles, and Ukraine would use PURL money to order that number of missiles from the manufacturer for that country.
About the Author: Stephen Silver
Stephen Silver is an award-winning journalist, essayist, and film critic, and contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review, and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. For over a decade, Stephen has authored thousands of articles that focus on politics, national security, technology, and the economy. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @StephenSilver, and subscribe to his Substack newsletter.
