Trump Will Allow Ukraine to Produce Patriot Interceptor Missiles

Donald Trump said he will allow Ukraine to produce interceptor missiles for Patriot systems—one of the key weapons needed to repel Russian attacks.

“We will give you a license,” Trump said at a meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky at the NATO summit in Turkey. “We will show them how to do it.”

Ukraine says it urgently needs additional Patriot missiles to defend against Russian strikes. Because of shrinking global stockpiles, Kyiv is seeking the right to produce the American interceptors on its own.

The Trump-Zelensky meeting is taking place as European leaders try to return the US president’s attention to Russia’s war against Ukraine and persuade him to increase pressure on Vladimir Putin to restart negotiations.

Zelensky arrived at the NATO summit after a series of Ukrainian missile and drone strikes on Russian supply routes deep behind the front and in occupied Crimea. Those attacks have strengthened morale in Ukraine. At the same time, Putin has faced domestic difficulties after strikes on key oil refineries that led to disruptions in fuel supplies in Russia.

Russian forces, however, continue to advance in Donetsk region, while Zelensky is insisting on additional interceptors to protect Ukrainian cities from missile and drone attacks.

The US is currently the only country capable of producing the interceptors Ukraine needs. Trump had earlier said he would “look at” the possibility of asking American defense companies to grant Europe and Ukraine a license to produce them.

Over the weekend, Trump held phone calls with Zelensky and Putin. A Kremlin aide said US representatives Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner would continue mediation efforts toward a settlement.

Trump, who had previously claimed he could end the war in 24 hours, later acknowledged that it was a difficult task. Early in his term, he was actively involved in negotiations and last year invited Putin to a summit in Alaska, but in recent months the process has reached an impasse, while other US foreign-policy priorities, including the war with Iran, have come to the fore.

Trump has said that Putin supposedly wants peace, although the Russian leader has not publicly demonstrated that. Moscow continues to put forward maximalist demands over Ukrainian territory and rejected Zelensky’s recent proposal for direct talks.

A US official told journalists on Sunday that the administration still views the conflict as a situation in which neither side is making significant progress. According to the official, Trump intends to discuss efforts to end the war with Zelensky.

On Tuesday, Trump told journalists that the war “doesn’t affect us”. “It’s, you know, far away. It affects Europe much more. We are there to help Europe,” he said.

The leaders of the UK, France, and Germany believe Ukraine has gained momentum and hope to persuade Putin to accept a ceasefire along the current front line as a starting point for negotiations and security guarantees for Kyiv, including the deployment of multinational forces to maintain peace.

Efforts to persuade Trump to refocus on Ukraine are complicated by tensions between Washington and NATO allies over the war with Iran and defense-spending levels.

Relations between Trump and Zelensky remain difficult. Their lowest point came at a meeting in the Oval Office in February 2025, when the US president and Vice President JD Vance sharply criticized the Ukrainian leader, accusing him of insufficient gratitude for American aid and saying that he had little leverage and should strike a deal with Russia more quickly.

Trump later expressed dissatisfaction with both Ukraine and Russia, even though Moscow started the war by invading its neighbor. At the same time, his assessment of Ukraine’s position on the battlefield appears to have changed: in June, he told journalists that Zelensky was doing “pretty well” in the confrontation with Russia.