When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky arrived at the G-7 summit in Evian, France, last week, he was ready with his latest set of military and economic requests. Near the top of his list was a new item: a license to produce Patriot anti-ballistic missile interceptors inside Ukraine.
Ukraine’s deficit of air defenses is, at this point, well-known. The country was running low on air defense interceptors even before February, when the Iran war diverted much of the limited supply away from Kyiv and toward the Middle East. Zelensky argues that giving Ukraine a license to produce Patriot missiles domestically would be a win-win, allowing his country to better defend its skies while also lessening the global interceptor shortage.
Ukraine’s desire to protect its airspace and infrastructure from attack is understandable. But even if the United States hopes to support Ukraine in this goal, acquiescing to Zelensky’s request for a Patriot production license is neither a wise nor an effective approach for doing so. The move would not measurably lessen Ukraine’s air defense deficit, but it would create substantial risks to U.S. national security by making it easier for competitors to get access to sensitive information about U.S. military systems. The Trump administration should therefore decline this request.
Ukraine’s air defense problem is one of simple math. Today, multiple times per week, Russia attacks Ukraine’s cities with dozens of missiles and hundreds of drones. At its current pace, Russia will fire over 900 ballistic missiles and hundreds of thousands of attack and decoy drones at Ukraine over the course of 2026.
Read at Responsible Statecraft
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