Ukraine will receive more Patriot air-defence missiles from the United States but this will not cost America as the bill is being picked up by European taxpayers instead, President Donald Trump said.
President Donald Trump’s Special Envoy to Ukraine the retired General Keith Kellogg arrived in Kyiv by train on Monday morning for talks with the Ukrainian government. Speaking ahead of his arrival, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he’d arranged for talks between General Kellogg and the heads of the Security Service of Ukraine — the powerful domestic intelligence agency tasked with protecting the state as well as assassinating dissidents — and other intelligence chiefs.
President Zelensky said Ukraine’s information sharing with Kellogg in today’s meetings will be “complete” as Ukraine wishes to lead a discussion on what can be done to “force” Russia into peace.
The Office of the President of Ukraine released a statement on Monday morning welcoming General Kellogg to Kyiv, stating conversations would take place on “defence, strengthening security, weapons, sanctions, protecting our people, strengthening cooperation between Ukraine and the U.S.”.
The arrival came hours after President Trump expressed his displeasure at Russia’s President Vladimir Putin for having made a mockery of peace talks, and said the United States would be sending more Patriot air-defence missiles to Ukraine.
Speaking beside Marine One as he returned to Washington D.C. on Sunday night, President Trump said the deliveries of the expensive interceptors: “…I haven’t agreed on the number yet but they are going to have some, because they do need protection, but the European Union is paying for it.”
“We’re not paying anything for it. But we will send it, it will be business for us, we will send them Patriots which they desperately need.”
In recent weeks Russia has hammered Ukraine nightly with record-size air strikes. At times the number of missiles and drones in flight towards Ukraine has exceeded 500 per night, the number of launches that the country might have been capable of per week in recent memory.
The advances in production have been seen to underline the apparently growing strength of Russia’s industrial base and ability to import components.
Of the diplicity of President Putin, Trump continued: “Putin really surprised a lot of people. He talks nice and then he bombs everybody and then he bombs everybody in the evening and there is a little bit of a problem there, I don’t like it.”
Whether the United States would be sending more Patriot Missiles — the United States’ advanced air interceptor system where the cost of each launch runs to over three million dollars and taking down a single ballistic missile can require multiple launches — has been a question of intense discussion in recent weeks and ultimately comes down to supply. The complex missiles are only produced in the United States and, it is reported, at a rate of around just two missiles per day rolling off the production lines.
So the missiles that have been sent to Ukraine already and those promised by President Trump to be paid for by the European Union now will likely be sourced from U.S. reserves as well as from new production. With further conflict looming with Iran and with China over Taiwan, allowing U.S. stores of this crucial missile is a serious headache for the President.
It has recently been claimed that U.S. stocks of Patriot Missiles worldwide could be as little as 25 per cent of what it believes it needs to meet all of its mission requirements, but the exact figures are not made public.
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