Zelenskyy Urges Swift Patriot Production After US License
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- Zelenskyy said political approval was secured from Trump during their Ankara meeting and called on Ukraine's technical teams and ministries to begin work "without delay" to obtain licenses and start production.
- Global Patriot supplies are running low as Ukraine uses interceptors faster than the US can produce them; the PAC-3 is one of the few Western systems capable of shooting down the ballistic missiles Russia has fired at Ukrainian cities.
- At a joint news conference in Ankara, Trump told Zelenskyy: "We're going to give a licence to you to make Patriots. This way, you can't complain that we're not giving them enough."
- Serhii Beskrestnov, an adviser to Ukraine's defence minister, warned on Telegram that production would take "many months," with some subcontracted components requiring 12 to 24 months — a bottleneck of time, not of Ukrainian capability.
- Zelenskyy said Trump told him only "two to three countries in the world" can produce Patriots and that the US recognizes Ukraine as technologically ready to do so.
- At the summit, Trump praised Zelenskyy for doing "an amazing job" — a sharp tonal shift from past criticisms — while insisting he remained determined to facilitate a Russia-Ukraine peace deal.
Why it matters: The license does not translate into interceptors anytime soon — Beskrestnov's 12-to-24-month component timeline means Kyiv must keep burning through dwindling donated PAC-3s to defend against Russia's escalating ballistic missile strikes before any home-built system comes online.
