{"id":680919,"date":"2026-07-08T19:13:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T19:13:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/680919\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T19:13:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T19:13:07","slug":"trump-gives-zelenskyy-vague-promise-of-licence-to-manufacture-patriot-missiles-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/680919\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump gives Zelenskyy vague promise of licence to manufacture Patriot missiles | Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump has told Volodymyr Zelenskyy<\/a> that Ukraine may be allowed to manufacture Patriot missile interceptors to counter Russian ballistic attacks. It would be a diplomatic coup for Kyiv, which has been struggling to counter Moscow\u2019s increasing missile threat.<\/p>\n

The US president\u2019s commitment, however, was vaguely framed, and he admitted he had not spoken to the US defence and aerospace companies Lockheed Martin and RTX Corporation (formerly Raytheon) that produce the Patriot system. It also remained unclear how quickly manufacturing of the expensive and complex munitions could be stepped up.<\/p>\n

Trump, sitting next to the Ukrainian president at the Nato<\/a> summit in Ankara, Turkey, said: \u201cA little birdie told me this, about the fact that we\u2019ll give them the right to make Patriots. We\u2019ll show them how to do it, it\u2019s very complex actually. But it\u2019s \u2013 you\u2019ll figure out the complexity quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n

He clarified: \u201cWe\u2019re going to give a license to you to make Patriots. This way, you can\u2019t complain that we\u2019re not giving them enough.<\/p>\n

However, in a blow to Ukraine\u2019s air defence capabilities in the short-term, Trump indicated that the US would not be able to supply Ukraine<\/a> quickly with Patriot interceptors from its own stockpile. \u201cWe have Patriots, but we don\u2019t have that many. We need them for ourselves too,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n

There is a global shortage of Patriot interceptors<\/a> due to the running down of stockpiles by Ukraine and Gulf states caught up the US-Israel war against Iran.<\/p>\n

Zelenskyy has been asking for more Patriot missles for years, but there is a global shortage due to the running down of stockpiles by Ukraine and Gulf states caught up in the US-Israel war on Iran. Photograph: AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

They are expensive to produce \u2013 at about $3m for a single interceptor \u2013 and until very recently the US was producing no more than 60 a month, a figure that has recently increased.<\/p>\n

Zelenskyy has for years been asking for more of them, and more recently for a license so that Ukraine can manufacture its own. Even at the current increased rate of production it is estimated that the US would not manage to replenish its stockpile for its own use until 2028.<\/a><\/p>\n

All of which makes it extremely unlikely that Ukraine would be able to deploy locally-produced Patriot interceptors any time soon.<\/p>\n

George Beebe a former senior Russia analyst at the CIA<\/a> who is now the director of the grand strategy programme at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said \u201cthe US decision to license Ukraine\u2019s production of Patriot \u2026 will do little to fix Ukraine\u2019s urgent air defence problems\u201d.<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cThe United States and Europe<\/a> have no missiles to spare, however. The conflict with Iran has badly depleted US and European stocks of these weapons, and the United States cannot produce them fast enough to meet Ukraine\u2019s needs.<\/p>\n

\u201cRussia is firing close to 100 ballistic missiles at Ukraine each month, and the pace is intensifying. The US only manufactures about 50 Patriots each month for itself and all its allies and partners.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will take many months for Ukraine to get a production facility built. But Russia will attack that facility as soon as the first cornerstone is laid, and to have any hope of completing that construction, Ukraine will have to divert many existing Patriot batteries from their current locations to that new facility.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe US should recognise that granting the license to Ukraine is very likely to expose Patriot technology to Russian intelligence collection.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps more significant was the tenor of Trump\u2019s bilateral meeting with Zelenskyy on the sidelines of the Nato summit, which was much warmer than some previous encounters<\/a> and includedpraise from Trump for Zelenskyy\u2019s willingness to reach a deal on ending the fighting in Ukraine.<\/p>\n

He said the Ukrainian president has \u201cdone an amazing job\u201d and \u201cbeen very effective\u201d in the war.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve actually developed a good relationship. It\u2019s hard to believe,\u201d Trump said. He added that he believed a deal on ending the war was on the horizon and that the US would \u201cwork on some kind of security package\u201d for Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Associated Press contributed to this report<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump has told Volodymyr Zelenskyy that Ukraine may be allowed to manufacture Patriot missile interceptors to counter…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":680920,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-680919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=680919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/680920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=680919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=680919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=680919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}