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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Friday that his US counterpart Donald Trump had informed him that he would grant Ukraine a license to build coveted Patriot missiles.
“At our last meeting, President Trump emphasised to me that yes, I have made a final decision. Ukraine will receive licences for the production of Patriot missiles,” Zelenskyy said in a voice note to reporters.
Zelenskyy and Trump met on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York earlier this week, where the Ukrainian leader said they had discussed potentially “de-escalatory steps that can open up the way to diplomacy.”
“I am grateful that in the meantime our teams keep working on launching Patriot interceptor production in Ukraine,” he added in a post on social media on Tuesday.
Kyiv has long called for allies to supply its forces with more interceptors and has been pushing for a license to produce Patriot missiles domestically, arguing that they are crucial to its ability to defend against Russian ballistic missile attacks.
During a meeting with Zelenskyy at the 2026 NATO summit in Ankara, Trump said Washington would give Ukraine a license to build the missiles.
“We’ll show them how to do it,” he said, adding to Zelenskyy: “This way you can’t complain that we’re not giving them enough.”
But he appeared to walk back that promise in late July, telling a cabinet meeting that “we have not agreed to that.”
“We’re talking about it. But it’s a hard thing to give away that kind of technology,” Trump said. “People that you give that technology, they can some day turn on you. You know that is possible”.
The Patriot missile system is one of the world’s most advanced air defences and can reportedly provide coverage against incoming ballistic missiles within a range of around 15 to 20 km.
Additional sources • AFP