Ukraine won’t be able to complain that America and the West aren’t giving it enough advanced defensive interceptor missiles because they’ll be allowed to make their own domestically, President Donald Trump sensationally revealed at the NATO summit in Turkey.
The United States government will grant Ukraine a license to build the Patriot Missile, an active component of the world-class surface-to-air missile interceptor system, one of the few ways to prevent a ballistic missile strike. Ballistic missiles are particularly difficult to intercept because they are propelled into space before returning to Earth, plummeting at enormous speed towards their targets.
The plan to radically boost production of the sophisticated, highly demanded, and long lead-time weapon by allowing Ukrainian factories to produce them was announced by President Donald Trump at the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, on Wednesday afternoon.
Urgently asking for more Patriot missiles has been a key theme for President Zelensky for months, and it is unclear whether Trump’s remarks to journalists as he sat beside the Ukrainian leader in Ankara are the first time Zelensky heard about the plan to hand over the blueprints, although President Trump certainly presented the news as if it were a surprise.
While the latest generation of Patriot missiles is extremely sophisticated, President Trump reflected on the quality of the Ukrainian defence industry and expressed his opinion that not only was Ukraine one of the only countries in the world that would be capable of making their own Patriots, but that they’d be able to start making them very quickly, too.
Stating that he was comfortable sharing the secrets to this advanced weapon system with Ukraine because it is a defensive, not offensive, system, President Trump said: “We’ll give them the right to make Patriots. We’ll show them how to do it, it’s very complex… That’s pretty cool, right? That’s why he can’t complain we’re not giving him enough, make ’em yourself!”.
Emphasising that Ukraine could get the production lines up and running quickly, Trump continued to say that “most countries couldn’t do that… but this is a very ingenious group… [it could be done in] not that much time, actually… I think they can produce them pretty quickly… we’ll work with the company. They have the capability to produce weapons, pretty complex weapons”.
President Zelensky, for his part, appeared pleased with the news and praised Patriot, calling it “the best in the world today, the best anti-ballistic system”.
The U.S. President followed up these remarks in a speech at the NATO conference later in the afternoon when he spoke more broadly about expanding the U.S. defence industrial base domestically too, allowing America to make more Patriots more quickly, as well as other weapons systems. Explaining that opening more factories would mean the wait time for new Patriot missiles to be delivered could drop from years to just weeks, President Trump said of his meetings:
I provided other leaders with an update on the steps we are taking to rapidly scale up production in the United States, and they wanted to hear that because they don’t want to get it in four years, five years, they want to get it in a week. And we’ll actually be at a point like that in the not too distant future with the defence plants that are being grown.
Lockheed, I think, is building five [new plants]… its going to quadruple the output we have with the munitions, whether it’s a Patriot or a Tomahawk missile… Lockheed-Martin will establish a world-class Patriot missile sustainment facility in Europe. They’ve been given a tremendous incentive by Europe to do that.
President Trump also noted German defence giant Rheinmetall would be producing the American Army Tactical Missile Systems — the famous ATACMS missiles that have been used to such effect in the Ukraine war — in Europe under licence as well.
It isn’t yet clear whether President Trump’s mooted licence deal with Ukraine to build Patriots will only apply to the consumables — the interceptor missile itself — or the complete system.
A complete Patriot battery, which includes the sophisticated radar and control system that guide the missiles onto their fast-moving targets — the Patriot can fly around 3,500 miles per hour compared to ballistic missile re-entry vehicles on their final trajectory which can approach 20,000 miles per hour as they plunge down from space, albeit with little to no manoeuvrability to avoid interception — costs over one billion dollars, including the missiles themselves. Replacement missiles cost around five million dollars each.
Wednesday’s bilateral with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky showed President Trump in an upbeat mood, praising his newfound friendship. Reflecting on how far his relationship has come with Zelensky, President Trump said: “We had a great talk the other day, I think, very positive. We have some very good stories to tell. He wants to see a settlement… we’ve actually developed a good relationship. It’s hard to believe, right? From the Oval Office to now, we’ve developed a very good relationship.”
President Zelensky replied that this development of their personal friendship wasn’t at an end, and so prompted, President Trump went on: “and this is the beginning, maybe. Just the beginning. And you know the country has a lot of future, such great land, such great assets, such great people… we’ve made a lot of progress in the past couple of weeks”.
Discussing the prospects for peace, President Trump repeatedly emphasised the importance of in-person meetings among the leaders of the U.S., Ukraine, and Russia. Asked whether he’d be willing to travel to Moscow for such talks, President Zelensky raised a laugh in the room by retorting: “It’s difficult, there are a lot of Ukrainian drones there”.
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