President Donald Trump told President Volodymyr Zelensky that he had made a 'final decision' to grant Kyiv a licence to produce Patriot air defence missiles, Zelensky said on 25 September 2026. The assurance was given during the leaders' last meeting on 22 September, held on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York.
The reported decision would settle an issue that had remained unresolved for months. It also addresses a central Ukrainian request at a time when Kyiv says it faces an acute shortage of Patriot interceptors, the missiles it relies on to counter Russian ballistic weapons.
The White House has yet to comment on Zelensky's account. Zelensky gave no indication of when Ukraine could begin producing the missiles or what capacity any agreement would provide. The terms and conditions of a licensing arrangement have also not been made public.
Trump's position had shifted during the summer. In July, he said it would be 'pretty cool' to grant Ukraine the licences. He later said the US should be 'very careful' before authorising Ukraine to produce the missiles. In early September, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the proposal was being negotiated.
Ukraine's need for Patriot interceptors has become more pressing since the United States and Israel went to war with Iran in February. Interceptors have been diverted to the Middle East because of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, leaving Kyiv short of missiles it says are the only reliable defence against Russia's ballistic weapons.
Zelensky said last month that Ukraine needed five percent of the United States' Patriot interceptor missiles to get through the winter. He said 10 percent would allow Ukraine to destroy all of Russia's ballistic projectiles.
A production licence would offer Ukraine a route towards a domestic supply, though it would not resolve the immediate shortage. Establishing industrial capacity would take more than a year even if the licences are granted. Kyiv is also working on its own anti-ballistic systems, Freya.
The decision comes after the US ended large-scale defence funding and arms deliveries to Ukraine when Trump took office again in 2025. Ukraine has therefore remained dependent on the availability of existing Patriot interceptors while it seeks a longer-term means of sustaining its air defences.
The discussion of missile production is taking place alongside wider diplomatic contacts over the conflict. The Kremlin said on Friday that a trilateral meeting involving the US, Russia and Ukraine to discuss efforts to end the four-and-a-half year conflict could happen soon.
Zelensky said any such meeting would take place at a technical level and might be held in the United Arab Emirates. The prospective talks and the reported licensing decision leave key details unresolved, including the timetable for production and the scale of any future Ukrainian output.
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