Zelenskyy Presses NATO for Patriot Missiles
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- Zelenskyy urged NATO allies at the Ankara summit to make air defense aid a key outcome, declaring: "Please help us get more air defense missiles. This is our top priority right now."
- Ukraine faces a growing shortage of Patriot interceptors — the U.S.-made missiles Kyiv relies on to shoot down Russian ballistic missiles — even as it maintains high interception rates against drones and cruise missiles.
- Zelenskyy praised the Patriot system as "excellent" but said current production is "nowhere near enough to meet demand," and disclosed that Ukraine has discussed Patriot production licenses with Washington.
- Zelenskyy pitched the assembled defense executives on European sovereign production, calling for "affordable, mass-produced, anti-ballistic systems" and declaring: "This cannot wait until 2030 or beyond."
- Ukraine showcased its drone warfare capability to NATO leaders, claiming its forces now eliminate tens of thousands of Russian troops each month overwhelmingly through drones, and citing naval drones in the Black Sea and long-range strikes inside Russia as proof of its defense industry's wartime transformation.
- Zelenskyy framed ballistic missiles as "Russia's last major advantage," arguing that neutralizing that capability is the one task Ukraine cannot handle alone.
Why it matters: Zelenskyy is shifting the ask from emergency donations to licensed production: Ukraine has discussed Patriot production licenses with Washington and is pressing Europe to build its own anti-ballistic systems "today" rather than by 2030, because current Patriot output is "nowhere near enough to meet demand." If Europe commits to mass-producing interceptors, the bottleneck on Ukraine's air defense — and on defending the continent against the missiles Zelenskyy calls Russia's "last major advantage" — begins to shift from political will to industrial capacity.
