US President Donald Trump gave his blessing earlier this week to domestic Ukrainian production of the missiles.By AP and ReutersPublished On 10 Jul 202610 Jul 2026Ukraine must make every effort to start domestic production of desperately needed Patriot interceptor missiles as soon as possible, now that Washington has agreed to grant Kyiv the necessary licences, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said.Speaking to reporters on Thursday after returning from this week’s NATO summit in Turkiye, Zelenskyy said that political approval had been obtained from US President Donald Trump when they met in Ankara and the challenge now was to quickly take the practical steps needed to begin production.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list“We resolved this issue politically,” he said. “It’s now very important that our technical teams, all our representatives from different ministries, representatives of the executive branch, start working on this without delay, so that we can get licences very quickly and start production in Ukraine as soon as possible.”Although Kyiv has received regular donations of Patriot missiles from its allies for its defence against Russia’s invasion, global supplies are running low, and Ukraine is using the interceptors at a faster rate than they can be produced in the US.Zelenskyy has been pressing the US to allow Ukraine to start producing the missiles itself to overcome the supply shortage.At a joint news conference with Zelenskyy in Ankara on Wednesday, Trump told him: “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.”The Patriot is a US-made air defence system. Its PAC-3 interceptor – short for Patriot Advanced Capability-3 – is one of the few Western weapons capable of shooting down the ballistic …
