President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said US President Donald Trump responded "positively" to Ukraine's request for licenses to produce American air defense systems and missiles, speaking on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Évian-les-Bains on 16 June. But he warned that US output cannot meet the demand of Ukraine, Europe, and the Middle East at once, and urged European states to build their own, cheaper anti-ballistic systems.
The ask is not new. Ukraine has pressed Washington for production licenses since at least last spring, and Zelenskyy has said before that the US once promised Europe the right to manufacture Patriot missiles, then pulled the offer back. What changed in Évian is the framing. With American interceptor lines already stretched, partly by the war between the United States and Iran now in its fifteenth week, Zelenskyy is no longer only asking the US to share. He is telling Europe to build a substitute the continent can actually afford.
Licenses, and the limit of American production
"US production is not as large as our needs. We need licenses," Zelenskyy said in an online conference with Reuters. He has met repeatedly with manufacturers, he added, and knows that producing Patriot systems and missiles is hard. Whether the licenses come depends on Trump.
"Right now he was positive. And when President Trump is positive, I hope that means 'yes,'" Zelenskyy said.
That hope has been disappointed before. Washington promised the licenses and then declined to follow through when Ukraine first proposed European production years ago, by which point Germany had nearly exhausted the air defense missiles it could send.
So he turned to the alternative. "From the European side, we very much need the world to try to produce European anti-ballistic systems, strong ones and, between us, cheaper ones," he said. "Otherwise we, Europe, the Middle East will not have enough."
The meeting itself
The licenses came up in Zelenskyy's first in-person meeting with Trump in nearly four months, a behind-the-scenes encounter of the G7 summit. Zelenskyy has aslo had a bilateral meeting with French president, and the summit's roundtable with all G7 leaders, the Ukrainian and American leaders were seated on either side of Macron. The outcome of the conversation was not disclosed.
Publicly, Zelenskyy kept his stated priority narrow. "The main thing is to strengthen air defense for Ukraine and to push diplomacy so that Russia ends its war. Peace is needed," he wrote on Telegram.
Beyond weapons, Zelenskyy told G7 leaders Ukraine needs a "winter package," money for diesel, gas, and fuel to keep energy facilities running through the cold months if the war has not ended by then. Every country present would back it, he said. Before arriving, he had also discussed with Trump the possibility of organizing a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the US.
Pressure through sanctions
Zelenskyy said every G7 participant condemned Russian strikes on civilian sites, including one on the Lavra, a major Orthodox monastery, and that the main lever against Moscow would be sanctions. Canada and the United Kingdom raised the issue, he said, with London proposing measures against the tankers of Russia's "shadow fleet." All countries would act on it, he said.
Whether any of it converts into systems on Ukrainian soil is the question Évian did not answer. Zelenskyy has called Trump "positive" before.
Read Also
-
Missiles Ukraine uses to shoot down Russia’s ballistic missiles are in short supply. Canada and Ukraine talked about fixing that
-
Ukraine struck Chonhar bridge to cut fuel to Russia’s 37th brigade. Its battalion commander died by suicide days later
-
Estonia’s defense commander went to Ukrainian front line. Ukraine says partners need to see real situation themselves
