US President Donald Trump said the US will let Ukraine manufacture Patriot missiles. He made the announcement at the NATO summit in Ankara on 8 July, standing next to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, as per UNIAN.
The Patriot systems Ukraine possesses are the only ones Kyiv has capable of intercepting Russian ballistic missiles.
Meanwhile, CBS News reports that Lockheed Martin and RTX Corporation, the two manufacturers of the Patriot system, have not been informed of the decision. Trump's Ankara statement is his third positive signal on Patriot licenses in three weeks, following the G7 summit at Évian-les-Bains on 16-17 June, where he told Zelenskyy the request was received "positively" but no binding commitment followed. This time, Trump named the system, direction, and forum.
The stakes are urgent. Ukraine operates six Patriot batteries. Russia struck Kyiv three times in the week before the Ankara summit, including a 2 July overnight attack with nearly 500 drones and 77 missiles, including 25 ballistic or hypersonic missiles that killed at least 30 people. Ukraine's Defense Ministry appealed to nearly 40 partner countries the same day to release Patriot interceptors from existing stockpiles.
Trump announced license standing next to Zelenskyy
Trump said "a little bird" told him the US would give Ukraine the right to make Patriots.
"We'll show them how to do it, it's very complex actually. But you'll figure out the complexity quickly," he said.
He stated that he "got a little bird telling me that we’re going to give them the right to make Patriots."
"That's pretty cool, right. This way you can't complain that we're not giving them enough," Trump added.
Trump also said the US does not plan to provide Ukraine with additional Patriot batteries directly, arguing the US needs the equipment itself.
He said Ukraine would be able to produce them "pretty quickly," per Bloomberg, though he provided no formal timeline.
Ukraine's ask goes back more than a year
Zelenskyy has pressed the US for Patriot production licenses since early 2026, as have previous administrations. He raised the request directly with Trump at the G7 summit in Évian-les-Bains, where Trump responded "positively," according to Zelenskyy.
The G7 joint statement on 17 June said allies were "ready to consider" granting Ukraine licenses, but committed to no timeline, no system, and no manufacturer. Ukrainian officials treated the Ankara meeting as the venue to convert "ready to consider" into a specific commitment.
Zelenskyy said at the NATO Defense Industry Forum on the summit sidelines that "current Patriot production is not enough to meet the growing demand for protection against ballistic missiles," according to ABC News.
The February 2025 Oval Office confrontation between the two leaders makes the Ankara tone notable in its own right. Trump praised Zelenskyy's willingness to work toward a deal with Russia. The journalists described the Trump-Zelenskyy exchange as another signal of Trump's shifting approach toward the war.
Europe pushes Brussels to unlock Patriot procurement
Nine European defense ministers, from Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Estonia, Poland, Latvia, Finland, and Lithuania, urged the European Commission on 7 July to speed the procurement of Patriot interceptors for Ukraine through the €90 billion EU Ukraine Support Loan. The letter came the day before the Ankara summit.
A production license will take months to translate into missiles on Ukrainian soil, even if Lockheed Martin and RTX cooperate immediately. Zelenskyy said at the summit that Ukraine needs Patriot missiles "as quick as possible, as much as possible."
