Kyiv, Ukraine —
Ukraine is running out of missiles for the US-made Patriot air defense system, making it more vulnerable to Russian ballistic missile attacks, a person familiar with the situation told CNN on Thursday.
The grim development comes amid an increasingly bitter public feud between US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Recently, the White House has increased pressure on Ukraine to halt attacks on Russia’s oil infrastructure, with a highly criticized deal to import Russian diesel.
Zelenskiy said he felt betrayed by Trump’s agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin, which then announced that Ukraine would continue its attacks on Russian oil refineries.
President Zelenskiy has repeatedly warned for months that Ukraine is running low on U.S.-made Patriot interceptors, one of the few defensive weapons capable of shooting down ballistic missiles.
But interceptor missiles are expensive and in short supply globally as other countries exhaust their stockpiles or seek to shore up their own defense systems amid the Iran war.
“Almost all the ballistic missiles from the previous attack were not intercepted because there were no (interceptor) missiles,” the official told CNN.
Russian ballistic missiles struck three power plants in Kiev in attacks overnight and into Wednesday morning, targeting Kharkov’s energy infrastructure. Four people were killed and 25 injured in Kiev that day.
Ukraine’s air force previously said it had intercepted four Russian ballistic missiles while defending itself, suggesting it was using the last few Patriots it had.
This is not believed to be the first time that Ukraine has run out of Patriot interceptor missiles, and Zelenskyy has been vocal about his constant struggle to acquire more stockpiles.
In mid-August, CNN became the first news organization allowed access to Patriot systems inside Ukrainian territory, when Ukrainian authorities revealed that the country was nearly out of interceptors.
Zelenskiy told CNN in August that he was spending his days making “millions” of phone calls with allies and working to reach deals with more patriots. He said at the time that Ukraine only had one-tenth of the interceptor missiles it urgently needed.
A month later, Ukraine’s president took a more hopeful tone, claiming that his country would “receive a license to manufacture Patriot missiles” from the United States. However, US President Donald Trump declined to say whether he would ultimately agree to the deal, and the license never materialized.
Tensions between Zelensky and Trump have boiled over in recent days as the US demands that Kiev halt its attacks on Russian fuel facilities, even as Russia continues to attack Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
President Zelenskiy told the Financial Times in a fiery interview that he could agree to halt energy attacks on Russia only if he was given “at a minimum” more Patriot interceptor missiles. He added: “When he called for strengthening air defenses, the American response was to weaken Starlink services.”
“The President of the United States has all the effective and necessary tools to bring peace closer through force, justice, and pressure against the aggressor. We request an additional package of Patriot anti-missile missiles for Ukraine,” he said in a public statement Wednesday, pleading again for more stockpiles.
Ahead of the US midterm elections, President Trump is increasingly blaming the Ukraine-Russia war for rising global diesel prices, even though the Iran war is playing a more important role in soaring fuel prices.
Earlier this week, the Trump administration warned Ukraine and its European allies that if Kiev did not stop its barrage of attacks on Russian energy facilities, the United States could halt European purchases of American weapons and intelligence sharing with Ukraine, two European officials told CNN. Warnings from the State Department and the Pentagon were sent to Ukrainian and European officials over the weekend, including a direct communication from the U.S. military to Ukrainian military commanders.
President Trump has since insisted that the United States has not stopped sharing information with Ukraine.
If the administration decides to suspend European weapons purchases through a mechanism called the Priority Ukraine Requirements List (PURL), it would threaten future shipments of Patriot interceptor missiles used for ballistic missile defense.
It’s not just a shortage of Patriot interceptors that is plaguing Ukraine this week, but the country is also grappling with disrupted intelligence sharing and restrictions on Elon Musk’s military version of Starlink, StarShield.
Ukrainian authorities said this week that Starshield throttling caught them off guard and disrupted military operations, logistics and the interception of jet-powered drone attacks.
By Thursday, StarShield operations had been partially restored, but Ukrainian officials suggested there were still some problems with the high-speed military weapon.
SpaceX CEO Musk said on his social media platform X that the StarShield system is owned and controlled by the U.S. government, and that limits on its speed and use are up to the U.S. military and the president.
CNN has reached out to the Department of Defense for comment. A senior U.S. official told CNN: “There was never a request like that (for restrictions) from the president.”
“At the moment, Starshield operations have resumed and are continuing,” a Ukrainian Defense Ministry official told CNN on Thursday. The official added that the ministry was consulting with all stakeholders “to clarify the full causes and circumstances of yesterday’s restrictions.”
Meanwhile, Zelenskiy suggested that some restrictions remain in place. Ukraine’s president said Thursday morning that Russia had launched more than 850 attack drones since midnight “at a time when the speed of our defense capabilities is being artificially limited.”
Denis Shinik, Ukraine’s top diplomat in Washington, agreed that StarShield’s speed has improved, but it has not fully recovered. “I hope everything returns to its previous level,” he told CNN.
Another Ukrainian official told CNN that Kiev has not received a response from SpaceX or the Pentagon.
A Ukrainian drone commander, who spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity, said his force was limited in Starlink operations on Wednesday, and some attack drones were unable to reach their targets. The commander said his unit did not conduct any attacks on Thursday due to bad weather, but other units were operating normally.
