Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Friday that U.S. President Donald Trump will allow Ukraine to build Patriot missiles, a key demand as Kiev tries to fend off relentless Russian air attacks.
“A concrete agreement is in place,” Zelenskiy told reporters. “In our last meeting, President Trump emphasized that indeed I had made the final decision. Ukraine will receive a license to manufacture Patriot missiles.”
The two sides met on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York this week, with Zelenskiy calling Russian President Vladimir Putin “patient zero” and saying that the more freedom there is to act, the more “the world becomes dangerous for everyone else.”
The question of whether President Trump will make good on his promise to allow Ukraine to build Patriot interceptors, the top track-and-destroy defense system that Ukrainians want to thwart Russia’s relentless ballistic missile attacks, has been plaguing Ukraine for months.
President Trump suggested Ukraine would win the right to join the Patriots in time for the NATO summit in Turkey in July, but he snubbed that offer weeks later. CNN has reached out to the White House for comment.
The Patriot interceptor missile is one of the few weapons capable of shooting down ballistic missiles. However, recent global supply shortages have caused dozens of countries to rush to strengthen their defense systems, severely impacting Ukraine’s supplies.
Russia is trying to take advantage of the situation by stepping up its ballistic attacks and hitting Ukraine, especially Kiev, with near-continuous airstrikes for about a month.
Without patriots, Ukraine struggled to fend off the Russian onslaught, and the civilian death toll increased significantly.
Seven civilians, including teenagers, were killed and 59 others injured in a series of daytime drone attacks on Kiev on Friday, the capital’s mayor said. Ukrainian officials said it was one of eight areas attacked.
In an interview with CNN in August, President Zelenskyy revealed that Ukraine has only one-tenth of the interceptor missiles it needs to thwart a surge in Russian attacks.
He added that he believed that 5% of the current U.S. stockpile would protect Ukraine from a Russian attack during the winter, but that 10% would be sufficient to destroy all Russian ballistic missiles.
President Zelenskiy also said on Friday that the United States proposed holding tripartite talks between Ukraine, Russia and the United States.
“As for the trilateral meeting, the US side has proposed holding it,” Zelenskiy said, adding that the date has not yet been decided and that the US has proposed the United Arab Emirates as the venue.
“We will brief the European side and discuss these details. The American side will consult with the Russian side and return within 10 days with a specific outlook and outcome,” Zelenskiy said.
So far, Russia has not committed to trilateral talks, saying only that they could take place “soon.”
Putin said on Friday that all proposals to restart talks were on the table, but Russia still needed to consider what was in its best interests.
CNN’s Svitlana Vlasova contributed reporting.
