Kyiv, Ukraine —
Ukraine has run out of missiles for the US-made Patriot air defense system, leaving it more vulnerable to Russian ballistic missile attacks, a source familiar with the situation told CNN on Thursday.
The stark development comes amid an increasingly bitter public feud between US President Donald Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky. In recent days, the White House struck a highly criticized deal to import Russian diesel and heaped increasing pressure on Ukraine to halt its strikes on Russia’s oil infrastructure.
Zelensky said he felt betrayed by Trump’s deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin and has since announced Ukraine would continue striking Russian refineries.
For months, Zelensky has repeatedly warned that Ukraine is running out of the US-made Patriot interceptor missiles, which are one of the few defensive weapons capable of knocking down a ballistic missile.
But the interceptors are both expensive and in short supply globally, as other countries have burned through their stockpiles or sought to shore up their own defense systems amid the war in Iran.
The source told CNN that “almost all the ballistic missiles from the last strike were not intercepted due to lack of the (interceptor) missiles.”
Russian ballistic missiles hit three power plants in Kyiv and targeted energy infrastructure in Kharkiv during that attack overnight into Wednesday morning. Four people in Kyiv were killed and 25 injured on that day.
It’s not thought to be the first time Ukraine has fully run out of Patriot interceptors and Zelensky has been publicly vocal about his constant struggle to obtain more stocks.
In mid-August, CNN became the first media outlet to be given access to a Patriot system on Ukrainian territory, and at the time Ukrainian officials revealed the country had pretty much run out of interceptors.
Zelensky told CNN in August that his days are spent on “millions” of phone calls with allies, working to make deals for more Patriots. At the time, he said Ukraine only had a tenth of the interceptor missiles it urgently needed.
A month later, the Ukrainian president struck a more hopeful tone – claiming that the country “will receive a license to manufacture Patriot missiles” from the United States. But US President Donald Trump ultimately declined to say whether he agreed to that, and a license never materialized.
Tensions between Zelensky and Trump have bubbled over in recent days amid Washington’s request that Kyiv halt its strikes on Russian fuel facilities, even as Moscow continued to pummel Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
Zelensky told the Financial Times in a fiery interview that he could only agree to halt energy strikes on Russia if he was given more Patriot interceptors at a “minimum.” He added that “when he asked for more air defenses the American response was to weaken Starlink’s service.”
In a public statement on Wednesday, he pleaded once again for more stocks, saying: “The American president has all the effective and necessary tools to bring peace closer through strength, justice, and pressure on the aggressor. We ask for additional packages of Patriot missile interceptors for Ukraine.”
Ahead of the US midterm elections, Trump has increasingly blamed the rise in global diesel prices on the Ukraine-Russia war, despite the Iran war playing a more significant role in the fuel price spikes.
Earlier this week, the Trump administration warned Ukraine and allies in Europe that the US could suspend European purchases of US weapons and intelligence sharing for Ukraine if Kyiv does not halt its deep strikes on Russian energy facilities, two European officials told CNN. The warnings from the State Department and the Pentagon were sent over the weekend to officials in Ukraine and Europe, including communications from the US military directly to Ukrainian commanders.
Trump has since insisted that the US had not stopped sharing intelligence with Ukraine.
If the administration did decide to suspend European weapons purchases — which take place via a mechanism called the Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List, or PURL — that would threaten any future shipments of the Patriot interceptors used to defend against ballistic missiles.