US President Donald Trump assured President Volodymyr Zelensky that he would allow Kyiv to produce advanced Patriot air defence missiles, the Ukrainian leader said Friday.
Kyiv is facing a shortage of the missiles, which remain the only ones reliably able to counter the ballistic missiles that Russia launches at Ukraine.
“At our last meeting, President Trump emphasised to me that yes, I have made a final decision. Ukraine will receive licences for the production of Patriot missiles,” Zelensky said in a voice note to journalists.
In July, Trump said it would be “pretty cool” to grant Ukraine the licences, before backtracking, saying the US should be “very careful” before granting Ukraine authorisation.
Ukraine has reported an acute shortage of Patriot interceptors since the US States and Israel went to war with Iran in February, diverting supplies of the advanced systems.
Read moreFor Ukrainians guarding Kyiv’s airspace, Patriot missiles could be a game changer
Even if the licences are granted, establishing industrial capacity would require more than a year and would not meet Kyiv’s immediate needs.
And Kyiv has renewed calls for urgent support ahead of winter, and the threat of a repeated campaign of Russian strikes against Ukraine’s power and heating infrastructure.
Kyiv needs five percent of the United States’ Patriot interceptor missiles to get through the winter and 10 percent to destroy all of Russia’s ballistic projectiles, Zelensky said last month.
In parallel, he said Kyiv is working on its own anti-ballistic systems, Freya.
Ukrainian drones target Russian oil refineries
Amid diplomatic efforts to revive peace talks, the Kremlin on Friday said a trilateral meeting between the US, Russia and Ukraine to discuss efforts to end the four-and-a-half year conflict could happen soon.
Zelensky has said the meeting would be at a technical level and might take place in the United Arab Emirates.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who said there were no details about the potential meeting to add for now, also said that Kirill Dmitriev, Russia’s presidential envoy, was in the United States where he had been talking to the US negotiators and focusing on the question of potential economic cooperation.
Meanwhile Ukraine hit two Russian oil refineries over the past 24 hours, Zelensky said Friday.
Facilities were struck in Bashkortostan and the Samara region, and that there had also been unspecified strikes in the Black Sea, Zelensky said.
Earlier Friday, Russian officials said two people were killed in overnight Ukrainian drone attacks on Russia.
Russia’s defence ministry said air defence units had destroyed a total of 592 drones overnight.
One civilian was killed and another wounded when a Ukrainian drone struck a truck in Russia’s Belgorod region, local officials said. In the Perm region – which hosts a major oil refinery – Governor Dmitry Makhonin said one man had been killed during a massive drone attack.
(FRANCE 24 with AP, AFP and Reuters)
