"They simply said no." The story of refusals that left Ukraine still unable to produce its own Patriot missiles

Night of 5 August. Russia massively attacks Kyiv and Kyiv region; more than two dozen missiles, mostly ballistic, hit their targets. Night of 9 August, one of the heaviest attacks on Odesa: roughly a hundred UAVs, "Banderol" missiles and 11 missiles, also mostly ballistic. Ukrainian air defenses shoot down about three quarters of the UAVs launched by Russia, five of six "Banderols," and only one missile (three more were knocked off course, apparently with the help of electronic warfare). These are just two nights in the past week, but this situation with countering ballistic missiles in Ukraine has been going on for several months. Interceptors, of which Ukraine has always had few, became a real scarcity after the war in Iran began. According to Ukrainian authorities' estimates, the US and allies during that campaign spent more Patriot interceptors in a few days than Ukraine has received over the entire full-scale Russian invasion. Ukraine is trying to obtain a license to produce these scarce interceptors, and although the first agreements have already been announced publicly, starting production will take years, and obstacles are arising on the way to a deal. The publication "GORDON" explains which concerns are stopping the U.S. authorities and manufacturers and why they are unfounded.

"They just told us no"

The story of Ukraine's attempts to obtain a license to produce these missiles has been going on for several years. President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said he raised the issue during talks with representatives of the administration of the U.S. president who preceded the current one, Donald Trump – Joe Biden. He noted the lack of results but did not specify details. 3 August Kyiv Independent, citing Ukrainian officials familiar with the course of negotiations, reported that these attempts have been underway at least since 2024.

The proposal to produce Patriot missiles jointly or independently under license was conveyed by Ukrainian negotiators to then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Biden's national security adviser Jake Sullivan. In response they received a refusal, the publication writes.

"No explanations – they didn't tell us anything," a media interlocutor said. "We tried to do it and offered various options, but they just told us no." Media sources state that if not for that refusal, Ukraine would by now have had a chance to independently produce ballistic interceptors.

Later Zelensky effectively confirmed these insights. "I spoke with President Biden in the first year of the war and persistently asked him to grant licenses for the Patriot. I spoke with several European partners in the first and second years of the war, when we began to use some of their military technologies, and I asked them to grant me licenses because their production is very limited and some problems are still unresolved. Now we have reached an agreement with President Trump that he will grant these licenses," he wrote on X on 8 August.

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"Make them yourselves"?

As early as the end of 2024, Zelensky said he had repeatedly asked the U.S. for licenses to produce Patriot missiles but received neither agreement nor refusal. This spring he first spoke of the risk of reduced supplies of interceptors, then bluntly said: the shortage of these missiles in Ukraine is such that it couldn't get worse. But, as it turned out, it can. Against this backdrop, initial reports emerged that Ukraine, together with European partners, is developing its own anti-ballistic system — the Freyja project, for which missiles are being created by Ukrainian Fire Point. Freyja is intended to become an analogue of the Patriot; they want each interceptor launch to cost many times less than an American launch, but the estimated start of this system's operation is summer of 2027.

Public progress on granting Ukraine licenses to produce Patriot missiles was announced this summer. Here is the chronology.

17 June. The day after Zelensky and Trump met on the sidelines of the G7 summit. The president of Ukraine announced that the entire Group of Seven, including the U.S., is positive about the idea of Ukraine creating missiles (he did not name Patriot specifically, but the topic was protecting the sky and developing Ukrainian air defenses). In an interview with TSN that aired a few days after the summit, the president of Ukraine clarified: "This became sufficiently public, so there are no secrets here, that the American team for the first time reacted positively to licenses. For the first time, because it was always: 'Well, we don't know,' 'Well, maybe, we'll look.'"

8 July. NATO summit in Ankara. Before meeting with Zelensky, Trump made a statement that was mostly taken as an announcement of granting Ukraine licenses to produce Patriot missiles. "I say: 'Make them yourselves.' Now the president can't complain that we somehow bypassed him on this," the U.S. president said. He then noted that the manufacturing company had not yet been informed about this, but "it will be fine."

23 July. Representatives of Raytheon arrived in Kyiv; after meeting with them Zelensky announced an agreement to jointly manufacture interceptors.

28 July. Zelensky and Trump met in Washington. The issue of licenses was one of the main topics discussed; the president of Ukraine reported that Trump agreed to continue the process of transferring licenses to produce these missiles. In addition, Zelensky asked Trump for an emergency "winter package" of Patriot missiles to protect Ukraine's energy infrastructure.

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Politics

Even if Ukraine receives the licenses, producing a large number of interceptors will take from one to five years, the president of Ukraine explained. "That schedule doesn't work," Zelensky said, "we needed Patriots yesterday." He hoped to assemble 300 missiles by this winter. But, as later reported by the media, Trump refused that request.

31 July. Trump is already having doubts about the decision on licenses. According to the media, Boeing, which produces one of the key missile components — the seeker head — is not ready to transfer its license for it to Ukraine.

Ukrainians will refine and make production cheaper. Where do the doubts come from?

There are explanations (or at least versions).

Trump, who repeatedly said that the U.S. itself needs Patriots and who always praises American weapons, said in Ankara that Patriot is an elite weapon that is hard to create. He also assured Zelensky that the U.S. will share the technology: "We will show them how to do it. Actually it's very complicated, but you will quickly figure out this complexity."

Sources at The Atlantic in the Trump administration said last week that the U.S. is exploring options for cooperation with Ukraine in the defense industry. However, they also note: fulfilling the promise to give Ukraine the ability to produce Patriot systems could jeopardize America's military advantage.

"We must prioritize protecting these sophisticated systems and expanding overall production of critical weapons systems for American forces, as well as for our partners and allies," a media interlocutor said.

Zelensky wrote on 8 August that American bureaucracy is a serious problem in the licensing issue. But, as The Atlantic reported the next day, there are others. Raytheon and Lockheed "officially justify their concerns by the theft of intellectual property and the transfer of technology," a source in the Trump administration told the magazine.

"Actually what worries them is that the Ukrainians will find a way to improve the Patriot, and then manufacture them in large volumes faster and at far lower cost than the existing U.S. production lines can," he added. At the same time, the sources do not cite concrete examples from the history of cooperation with Ukraine that would justify such concerns. On the contrary, Ukraine willingly shares its own technologies, the magazine emphasized.

And according to the CEO of Ukrainian defense company Infozakhyst, which among other things manufactures electronic warfare equipment and offers data-protection solutions, Yaroslav Kalinin, Western companies even copy Ukrainian technologies.

"If we talk about unmanned aviation, especially FPV drones, the transfer of engineering architecture, circuit design and specific software mostly goes from Ukraine to the West," he said in a comment to LIGA.net.

According to him, this happens as follows: representatives of foreign defense firms, funds and missions regularly visit Ukraine, supposedly to help or monitor — and gain access to production, study the Ukrainian combat experience and technical solutions, and afterwards they 'just buy Ukrainian brains' — offer leading engineers contracts or relocation.

"As a result they legally reproduce these technologies at home. They tell us 'thank you for the experience,' while Western defense giants get ready-made, war-tested products without spending years on their own R&D," the CEO of Infozakhyst concluded.

Satisfying Ukraine's request would be logical given the country's military development, The Atlantic wrote. The magazine emphasizes: if any European country has the incentive and experience to become an important node in the U.S. military supply chain, it is Ukraine. Kyiv can even be called a 'model ally,' the publication adds, paraphrasing words of Pentagon political affairs chief Elbridge Colby (who is considered responsible for stopping aid to Ukraine in 2025) about Israel. Granting licenses to Ukraine would not be a concession to a dependent state fighting a losing war: it could very well become the start of a manufacturing agreement that would ultimately serve the U.S., the article's author writes.

"Imagine: if we had received them four years ago — now we would already be producing Patriots for everyone," Zelensky wrote on 8 August.