Ukraine can soon build its own Patriots – but it could take years

KYIV, Ukraine — U.S. President Donald Trump’s pledge to give Ukraine a license to build its own Patriot interceptors would grant a manufacturing right the United States currently extends to only a handful of allies. It is one Kyiv has eyed since the war began, though it could be years before a homegrown iteration defends a Ukrainian city. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, detailing the deal on Thursday after he and Trump met at the NATO summit in Turkey earlier in the week, said the two have resolved it “as leaders” and that Ukraine has been “recognized by America as a country that is ready” to build the system. “Thank you for the positive decision regarding the license for the production of Patriots,” Zelenskyy said, noting that Trump “repeatedly emphasized that today only two or three countries in the world can produce Patriots, because others are not technologically ready.” Zelenskyy has pressed Washington for the interceptors for years, as Russia has fired ever more ballistic missiles at Ukrainian cities. Trump’s offer to let Kyiv produce Patriots could hand it an edge both on the battlefield and in its standing with allies and foes alike, but only on a timeline that will take years and cost billions of dollars. “Our groups, our diplomats, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Defense need to agree on all the other technical matters,” Zelenskyy told journalists on Thursday. “The sooner we agree, the sooner we will be able to produce Patriots.” The promise moves Ukraine from a war it entered reliant on Western arms toward building the most sought after air defense weapon of the conflict itself, a milestone for Kyiv and a measure of how far Washington has shifted. It also moves Kyiv a step closer to defending itself without leaning on allies who have rationed what they send. So far, the nuts and bolts of the deal remain largely undecided from both government officials and industry leaders — and unsigned. The manufacturer has also not been entirely brief. “We haven’t informed the company of that yet,” Trump said of Lockheed Martin, which builds the interceptor, while announcing the agreement. The Patriot’s PAC-3 interceptor destroys its target on impact, a “hit-to-kill” design, and is one of the only weapons able to stop a ballistic missile, making it among the most closely guarded technology the United States exports. A Patriot interceptor brings together an entire ecosystem of weapons: a radar, a command post, along with the launchers and the interceptors themselves. Ukraine is aiming for permission to manufacture the PAC-3 MSE, the newest and the hardest to build. Japan is the only other country that builds Patriots under a U.S. license today. Germany, the Netherlands and Spain are jointly standing up a European production line, and Berlin is separately negotiating its own license. Washington licenses it sparingly because of fears the tech could end up in enemy hands. That caution has only deepened now. The U.S. fired bet…