“We need to stop viewing assistance that enables Ukraine to defend itself as purely a matter of supporting Ukraine. It is also in NATO’s own interest … the more drones and missiles Ukraine can destroy in its own airspace, the fewer will cross the borders of neighboring NATO countries,” the envoy added.
Getmanchuk underlined that Western countries still have stocks of interceptor missiles to donate, including missiles close to the end of their service lives.
“There is hardly a better way to decommission them than by using them in the Ukrainian sky,” Getmanchuk said.
Kyiv is proposing a workaround: allies hand over interceptors from their existing stocks now, and Ukraine replaces them later with missiles it has already ordered.
“It’s a swap — not a donation. What we need is to get through this winter,” Getmanchuk said.
Ukraine is placing substantial orders, using both partner funding and the EU’s €90 billion Ukraine Support Loan. These contracts cover not only hundreds of Patriot interceptors — both PAC-2s and PAC-3s — but also European systems, including SAMP/T and Aster 30 missiles, IRIS-T and others.