Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has thanked US Secretary of State Marco Rubio for a “substantive conversation focused on the important issues” – and at the same time warned of a shortage of Patriot interceptor missiles. According to Zelensky’s post on X on Tuesday, the conversation covered air-defence missiles, early-warning systems and the satellite services Starshield and Starlink; he did not go into further detail, according to ZDF. “Thank you, Marco, for the constructive discussion! Thank you to everyone in America who supports fair solutions!”, the broadcaster quoted from the post.
The thanks follow days of open confrontation. On Monday, at a virtual meeting with US senators from both parties, Zelensky said the US was currently supplying only twelve Patriot interceptor missiles per month – about a quarter of the pace under Joe Biden’s administration, as he said in a Bloomberg interview, according to the news outlet Ukrinform. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has so far not signed off on the release of missiles that have already been paid for, the news outlet Kyiv Independent reported, citing a senior government official and two military personnel who wished to remain anonymous. One of the interlocutors told the outlet: “Hegseth has the contracts for the Patriot missiles on his desk. He is not signing them.”
According to the Ukrainian Presidential Office, Zelensky told the senators: “The missiles are ready for use. They could already be in Ukraine. (…) But unfortunately, authorisation has still not been granted.” He added: “All this suggests that a political decision has been made to slow down support for us.” The missiles had already been paid for by the European side through the PURL mechanism, under which Nato states and allies buy weapons packages in the US for Ukraine.
Washington and Nato contradict
A different picture emerges from Washington and Brussels. A US government official described the Ukrainian allegations to the Kyiv Independent as “not true”. A Nato official told the outlet that deliveries through PURL were continuing, including material for air defence; another Nato official acknowledged possible delays in individual deliveries but considered political reasons for them unlikely. The Pentagon had not issued any further statement by the time the report was published. According to a Ukrainian defence representative, the situation had not changed on the morning of 19 October – Hegseth had still not authorised the delivery in question.
US President Donald Trump rejected the criticism in Washington on Monday: “We have given Ukraine a lot – they have given us nothing. Don’t forget that.” Zelensky was “no real help” in the peace efforts, Trump said, according to ZDF, adding: “Zelensky doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” The Ukrainian president had previously suggested that Trump, with his Kremlin-friendly course, was on the wrong side of history.
In Oslo, the waters are to be calmed
This Tuesday, Zelensky and US envoy Steve Witkoff are meeting in Norway for talks on the war in Ukraine. According to the Norwegian government, Zelensky had asked Norway and Finland to organise the meeting as part of ongoing diplomatic mediation; Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner will join by video, according to ZDF. Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said, according to the news agency NTB, that the aim was to steer diplomatic efforts back into more constructive channels. Afterwards, Witkoff wanted to travel to Moscow, “where he hopes to meet President Vladimir Putin and present ideas”, the US news outlet Axios quoted a US official as saying.
Zelensky at the same time warned against Washington taking sides with Moscow. “If Washington were to side with Moscow, Ukraine could not survive,” he told the US broadcaster NBC. On relations with the US, he told Bloomberg that “much more is at stake than a deal on diesel fuel” – an allusion to the controversial deal on Russian diesel that Trump had concluded a week before suspending already-agreed Russia sanctions.
For Ukraine, the Patriot missiles are about weapons against an acute threat: according to the Kyiv Independent report, Russia attacks cities and infrastructure almost daily with ballistic missiles, which are particularly difficult to intercept. Ukrainian representatives warn that a lack of interceptor missiles weakens the defence and endangers lives. In Germany, the issue is likely to be followed closely also because the Federal Republic, through PURL and its own stocks, is one of the main funders and suppliers of Ukrainian air defence – but according to Zelensky, European states are still waiting for US authorisation to pass on Patriot missiles from their stocks.
Whether the meeting in Oslo will resolve the deadlock is open. Zelensky himself is counting on a time after the US congressional elections on 3 November: “During elections, politics is very aggressive. I think that now it is an agony, but after the elections life goes on, and I believe it will become calmer,” he said, according to Ukrinform. (Editorial assessment: As long as authorisation in Washington is not forthcoming, Kyiv will remain vulnerable in the field of air defence – regardless of how the meeting in Norway turns out.)
Earlier coverage: Paid-for Patriot missiles: why is the US stalling?
