Trump says US will let Ukraine produce Patriot missiles

At a NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, President Donald Trump said the United States would give Ukraine a license to manufacture Patriot air defense systems, a move that could let Kyiv scale up missile defense faster and reduce its dependence on slow foreign deliveries. Trump said Ukraine could make the systems “pretty quickly,” even as outside estimates suggest a production setup could take years.

The announcement came during a bilateral meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the sidelines of the summit, where Trump struck a notably warmer tone than in past exchanges. He praised Zelenskyy and called their relationship “very good,” a sharp turn from earlier criticism that Zelenskyy had been ungrateful for U.S. support. The shift matters because Ukraine has spent months pressing Washington for more air-defense capacity as Russian missile and drone strikes continue.

The Patriot system is the U.S. military’s primary anti-ballistic missile system, and the planned license would allow Ukraine to produce Patriot missile interceptors or related air-defense systems on its own. Trump said the weapons were defensive and described them as “elite equipment,” while suggesting Ukraine did not need to rely solely on U.S. shipments. That approach would give Kyiv a pathway to build capacity at home rather than wait for scarce allied inventory to move through the supply chain.

Reuters said the interceptors are expensive and in high demand, which helps explain why Ukraine has repeatedly sought permission to produce them. The New York Times said setting up a manufacturing operation could take several years, underscoring the gap between Trump’s pledge and anything that would affect the battlefield immediately. Even so, the licensing plan would mark a significant boost for Ukraine because it has long sought the technology and the authority to make it itself.

The arrangement also carries clear policy and security implications. Allowing a foreign government to produce or co-produce a highly sensitive U.S. defense system would represent a substantial shift in how Washington handles one of its most advanced air-defense technologies. It could also sharpen tensions with Russia, which has treated Western weapons support for Ukraine as a central battlefield issue throughout the war.