The 500 PAC-3 missiles for the Patriot air-defence systems whose sale to Ukraine the US State Department has approved are to be delivered only after 2030. This is reported by the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty correspondent in Washington, Alex Raufoglu, citing sources familiar with the matter; Ukrainska Pravda and Hromadske pass on the information. The order is worth 2.1 billion dollars. According to ORF, delivery of the missiles, which still have to be manufactured, is expected only in the 2030s.
President Volodymyr Zelensky had described the approval on 30 October as an important step and at the same time pointed to the long wait. In a post on X, he wrote according to Hromadske that 500 PAC-3 interceptor missiles were “substantial”, and that soon – this winter – that “could” be a very effective defence package. However, it had been stipulated that delivery could begin “only in a few years”. He asked the American partners to find a solution precisely when there is a real danger and a real need for the use of PAC-3.
According to Zelensky, Ukraine has asked the US for a winter package with 100 interceptor missiles per month. 500 missiles would be enough to close the sky “in the coming months”. The US, the European partners and other countries had sufficient stocks of PAC-3 interceptor missiles in their depots; to give them to Ukraine now, in the winter of 2026/2027, and later replenish the arsenals from production paid for by Ukraine and its partners, would be the right way. According to ORF, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence is pressing the Pentagon to bring the delivery date forward. One possibility would be for Kyiv to receive missiles from the US arsenal, which would later be replenished with the new interceptor missiles.
Republican Senator Richard Blumenthal said according to Ukrainska Pravda that he was disappointed that, according to the statement, the interceptor missiles would be delivered only in a few years. In the face of a terribly hard winter and unbearable privations caused by Russian bombardments, Ukraine urgently needed air-defence means; a US commitment to immediate help would save many lives.
According to Raufoglu, there is also no agreement on joint production of the missiles in Ukraine. The Pentagon is still examining the question of a licence for manufacturing. In practice, Kyiv has neither an authorisation nor a concrete timetable for building up its own production. Such an announcement could distract from the more urgent problem, namely the delivery of existing interceptor missiles.
According to the US State Department, the purchase is financed by contributions from Canada, Germany and Norway through the “US Jumpstart” programme, and funds from an EU assistance loan are also used. The main contractor is the arms company Lockheed Martin. The long delivery time is linked to production capacities: the US Army had awarded Lockheed a contract in July worth up to 58.6 billion dollars for the manufacture of Patriot interceptor missiles, and the company announced that it would triple production capacity by the end of 2030.
Zelensky had previously stated that this year Ukraine would receive on average only 12 missiles per month for Patriot systems. According to him, the US and countries of the Middle East used more than 2,000 Patriot missiles in the first days of the war against Iran, while Ukraine had received 24 missiles from its strategic partners in the past 90 days. Ukrainian Defence Minister Yevhenii Khmara called on the countries of the E5 format – Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Poland and Italy – to consider handing over 10 per cent of their stocks of interceptor missiles for Patriot and IRIS-T systems in exchange for future deliveries.
Earlier coverage: 500 Patriot missiles for Ukraine: approved, not delivered
