Ukraine to Receive New US Patriot Missiles Within Days

Ukraine will receive a new shipment of missiles for its Patriot air defense systems from the United States in the coming days, President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on Thursday, according to RBC-Ukraine.

“We will receive a shipment from the United States in the coming days. I have also concluded separate agreements with our European partners”, Zelensky said when asked whether he had negotiated the delivery of PAC-3 missiles capable of intercepting ballistic missiles during the NATO summit in Ankara.

Ukraine has long urged its allies to strengthen its air defenses. Zelensky repeated the appeal at the NATO leaders’ meeting in Turkey on Tuesday and Wednesday, saying Russian ballistic missiles currently posed the greatest threat to the country.

Kyiv faces a critical shortage of interceptor missiles capable of repelling such attacks. Patriot missiles are the only weapons in Ukraine’s arsenal capable of shooting down ballistic missiles with a high degree of success.

US President Donald Trump announced during a meeting with Zelensky in Ankara that the United States would grant Ukraine a license to manufacture missiles for Patriot systems. Zelensky told reporters on Thursday that he had discussed the details with Trump and his team, but that technical aspects still had to be agreed before production could begin.

According to AFP, experts say that manufacturing a missile for the Patriot system, one of the world’s most technologically advanced air defense weapons, takes about two years.

(AFP, RBC-Ukraine, TASR)