President Trump on Wednesday appeared to give Ukraine one of the things it wanted most — permission to produce the Patriot air defense interceptors sorely needed to defend against Russia’s deadly ballistic missile attacks.
Now comes the hard part.
The ballistic missiles are raining down on Kyiv now, but the fruits of Mr. Trump’s informal, seemingly impromptu policy announcement may not be ripe for years. Patriot systems are complex and time consuming to manufacture.
It is unclear which Ukrainian company might be selected to partner with either RTX or Lockheed Martin, the two primary defense contractors that produce the Patriot systems, to manufacture the interceptor missiles. Once they have a factory in Ukraine built, it would immediately become a high-priority target for Moscow.
These are all problems Ukrainian leaders are happy to tackle. President Volodymyr Zelensky is confident that after four years of war, his country moves more quickly than Western militaries at procurement and production, driven by the lethal threat it faces every day.
Ukraine is engaged in a race against time to bolster its air defenses. Mr. Zelensky has warned for weeks that Ukraine is running out of Patriot interceptors, the most reliable weapon that Western allies have given the country to shoot down Russian ballistic missiles. The mobile, surface-to-air defense system consists of advanced radar, a control van, and missile launchers, which fire the interceptor missiles.
The consequences of the shortage were laid bare on Monday, when Ukraine’s Air Force said it had failed to intercept any of the 23 ballistic missiles launched by Russia overnight. This week alone, Russian attacks have killed more than 50 people.
Ukraine has long pressed its Western allies for more Patriot interceptors, but global inventories are under severe strain from multiple conflicts around the world. The U.S.-Israeli war against Iran, in particular, used up stockpiles while driving up demand among Persian Gulf countries that Iran targeted in retaliatory attacks.
In response, Mr. Zelensky has urged Washington to grant Ukraine a license to produce the Patriot interceptors, permission that the United States has given only to Germany and Japan.
“We have long made the case that we are capable of producing such defensive weapons ourselves,” Mr. Zelensky said in an evening address on Monday. “If Ukraine were granted U.S. licenses to produce Patriots, our own production would be sufficient both to protect Ukraine and to help partners in need.”
The permission came, unexpectedly, on Wednesday. “We’ll give them the right to make Patriots,” Mr. Trump said during a meeting with Mr. Zelensky on the sidelines of the NATO summit meeting in Ankara, Turkey. “We’ll show them how to do it.”
Mr. Trump said Ukraine had the technical capacity to produce the advanced Patriot systems, praising the country’s booming defense industry. “They would be able to do it,” he said. “Most countries would not be able. They don’t have the talent. You have very talented people.”
The crucial question, however, is how quickly Ukraine can secure the license — Mr. Trump’s statement of his intentions is just the start of the process — and begin producing Patriot interceptors.
“I would be very surprised if you could set it up in under 12 months,” said Fabian Hoffmann, a senior research fellow at the Norwegian Institute for Defense Studies in Oslo, a research group. He pointed to the plan to produce Patriots in Germany, which was first announced in 2024, with the first interceptors expected to reach the German military in 2027.
Judging by Mr. Trump’s comments on the sidelines of the NATO summit, his declaration on Wednesday did not follow a careful, formal deliberative process. Mr. Trump said that his administration had not yet informed any American company involved in manufacturing the Patriot systems of the decision to license production to Ukraine.
“We haven’t informed the company of that yet, but that’ll work out all right,” he said, without naming the company.
The State Department is responsible for approving the transfer of weapons from the United States to other countries, as well as issuing licenses for foreign nations to manufacture U.S.-designed munitions, following a review process laid out under federal law. Those same laws allow the president to waive the required reviews for reasons of a national security emergency.
It is unclear whether State Department officials were aware of Mr. Trump’s intent to allow Patriot production by Ukraine in advance of his comments on Wednesday.
Even after the license has been secured, setting up production of such sophisticated weapons would be a technically demanding process, and probably a lengthy one. For a start, Patriot interceptors are made up of many complex components that are often manufactured by subcontractors.
“The main issue with licensed production is it only makes sense if you can properly localize the supply chain,” Mr. Hoffmann said. “Final assembly is not the bottleneck. If I have all the components I can put them together in Ukraine.”
Another question will be whether a deal would be for the older model PAC-2 interceptors, made by RTX, or the more advanced PAC-3 interceptors, produced by Lockheed Martin. The latter are the most effective for shooting down ballistic missiles, Ukraine’s biggest vulnerability.
Serhii Honcharov, executive director of the National Association of Ukrainian Defense Industries, said producing PAC-2 interceptors would be easier and faster for Ukraine. “But PAC-3 is what is crucially needed now,” he added.
Mr. Honcharov said he viewed Mr. Trump’s announcement “more as a political signal of U.S. support for Ukraine” as the war drags on than as a guarantee that additional military aid is on its way.
The Trump administration has pressed American defense contractors to ramp up production of missile interceptors, including THAAD and Standard Missiles, as well as Patriots. A study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies noted that many of the big defense contractors rely on the same set of subcontractors for missile components, which could result in competition for scarce components.
The report also detailed how complex production of components can be. The propellants used in solid rocket motors for interceptor missiles must be carefully mixed, cast and cured. After assembly they are inspected with X-rays for cracks and other flaws, before they are tested, coated and finally painted.
There are nozzles and liners, igniters and thrust vector controls, and all of this is just for the motors. The seekers that guide the interceptor to the incoming missile are generally considered the most complicated component.
“You can’t get super exquisite seeker capability just by wanting it badly enough,” said Tom Karako, the director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, who was one of the report’s authors.
Mr. Karako said it would probably take several years to go from permission to production.
Ukraine’s defense industry had already begun working on its own, homegrown air-defense alternatives.
The Ukrainian defense company Fire Point, known for its attack drones and Flamingo cruise missile, announced plans to produce a domestic missile-defense system. The company began negotiating with European manufacturers for complex components, such as an agreement with the German company Hensoldt for advanced radars, announced last month.
The Fire Point plan is for a cheaper interceptor than the Patriots, which can cost more than $3.7 million per missile. The company said it was already producing and stockpiling missiles that could be used in the system once they acquired the advanced seekers that guide them to their targets.