US Approves $2.1 Billion Sale of 500 Patriot Missiles to Ukraine, Paid for by Allies

The United States State Department said on Friday it had approved the sale of 500 Patriot PAC-3 missiles to Ukraine for an estimated $2.1 billion, in what Reuters described as one of the most substantial steps to supply defensive weapons to Kyiv since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term.

Ukraine will pay for the missiles with contributions from Canada, Germany and Norway routed through a program called US JUMPSTART, along with national funds financed by the European Union’s Ukraine Support Loan, the State Department said in a statement. No United States funds are involved in the sale, according to the department. Lockheed Martin is the principal contractor for the sale.

A delivery gap Zelensky wants closed

The deal is for the PAC-3 MSE variant of the Patriot, the most advanced version currently in service and one of the few weapons capable of shooting down incoming ballistic missiles, according to CNN. Kyiv uses the defensive weapons to blunt Russia’s ballistic missile strikes, but Ukraine’s supply ran dry earlier this month, CNN previously reported.

Zelensky praised the authorization in a social media post on Friday, but he stressed that the interceptors must be delivered soon, not years in the future, in order to protect against ongoing Russian attacks. He said Ukraine had asked for a winter support package at a rate of 100 Patriot interceptors per month, and that 500 missiles would be enough to protect Ukrainian skies over the coming months. He also said the United States and its partners have sufficient stocks of PAC-3 interceptors in their warehouses, and proposed providing them to Ukraine now and replenishing partner arsenals later with production already contracted and paid for.

The Friday release did not specify when the interceptors would be delivered, nor did it specify whether any components of the missiles would be produced in Ukraine as part of an offset agreement, CNN reported. Two people briefed on the United States decision told Reuters the missiles, which are yet to be manufactured, are not expected to be delivered until a couple of years into the 2030s. One of the people said Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense is encouraging the Pentagon to bring forward the delivery date, possibly by giving Kyiv missiles already in the United States arsenal and backfilling with the new Patriot interceptors.

Approval follows weeks of strain

The approval comes after weeks of tension between the United States and Ukraine. Earlier this month, Trump announced a deal to allow Russian diesel exports to global energy markets and waived a further slate of sanctions related to Russian fossil fuel sales that had only just been signed into law, CNN reported. He also threatened to withhold intelligence to Kyiv over its strikes on Russian refineries, and Ukraine’s access to the Starshield satellite system was throttled for a period before it was restored last week.

Zelensky said on Monday that Ukraine had been waiting for almost a month for the United States to sign off on missile supplies, as Russia stepped up attacks on energy and civilian infrastructure. On Thursday, a Russian drone strike killed at least 14 people on a crowded rail platform in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, while five people died in daytime strikes on two other cities and a late-evening missile strike killed one person in Kyiv, officials said, according to Reuters. In July, Trump announced at a NATO summit in Turkey that Ukraine would receive a license to produce its own Patriot missiles, CNN reported, but any Ukrainian interceptor factory could take years to build.

Reporting based on coverage by Reuters and CNN.