Poland has received preliminary approval from the US State Department to manufacture PAC-3 MSE interceptor missiles domestically, says Deputy Defense Minister Cezary Tomczyk, RMF24 reports. The Americans were initially skeptical, but their position shifted after a Polish delegation visited the US, driven by growing demand and shrinking US stocks.
Ukraine alone consumes about 60 Patriot interceptors per month and is on what its Air Force calls a "starvation ration" against Russian ballistic strikes. The Iran-Israel war drained US stocks further, just as Gulf states, Taiwan, and European allies all ramped up demand for the same finite supply.
Iskander killer
The PAC-3 MSE is the only US-supplied weapon Ukraine has that consistently intercepts Russian Iskanders and Kinzhals.
Lockheed Martin remains the sole current producer. To address bottlenecks elsewhere in the production chain, the US has separately contracted Boeing to triple production of the interceptors' guidance heads, Euromaidan Press reported in April.
From US skepticism to a preliminary green light
"This is a matter of consortium — we have such capabilities in Poland," Tomczyk says.
Polish forces already operate two Patriot batteries and expect six more, RMF24 reported.
Washington is also "very interested" in Poland producing long-range HIMARS missiles and Hellfire missiles used on Apache helicopters, Tomczyk adds.
The Polish news comes weeks after the Pentagon announced an Abrams engine repair center in Dęblin, part of a broader push by Warsaw to localize support for the US weapons it buys.
Ukraine waits as interceptor capacity slowly expands
A single PAC-3 MSE costs roughly $3-5 million. Russia produces about 70 ballistic missiles per month — a pace that sits just below the entire global annual output of all Patriot interceptors, around 850-880 missiles per year, including older PAC-2 GEM-T variants, according to Oslo University missile expert Fabian Hoffmann.
In mid-May, 13 countries joined Ukraine in an anti-ballistic coalition to push European missile defense production at scale. Polish PAC-3 manufacturing is in early stages, and Tomczyk described the next step as forming a consortium.
