WASHINGTON (The Thursday Times) — The United States has approved the sale of 500 Patriot PAC-3 interceptor missiles to Ukraine for $2.1 billion, the State Department said on Friday, after Kyiv warned that it was running critically low on the only weapon able to reliably shoot down Russia’s ballistic missiles.
The sale will be “funded entirely” by Ukraine’s allies, the State Department said, with donations from Canada, Germany and Norway through the JUMPSTART programme and national funds financed by the European Union’s Ukraine Support Loan. Lockheed Martin will be the principal contractor, and “no US funds are involved in this sale”, it said.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said earlier this week that Kyiv had waited almost a month for Washington to sign off on the supplies, as Russia intensified attacks on Ukraine’s energy grid ahead of winter. Late on Friday he said Russian ballistic missiles had struck two regions. “They continue to carry out terrorist strikes against our cities,” he said.
The approval comes days after a row in which President Donald Trump said it was time for Ukraine to get a new leader to help end the war. Delivery is unlikely to be quick: the order is understood to be for newly built missiles, only about 600 Patriots are produced a year according to the US Defense Department, and stocks are under strain from the US war with Iran.
