The Trump administration on Friday approved the sale of Patriot air defense systems to Ukraine for $2.1 billion, the State Department said in a statement.
The State Department said 500 Patriot missiles were being purchased for Ukraine with donations from Canada, Germany and Norway under a U.S. program and that no U.S. funding was involved.
“This proposed sale will support the foreign policy and national security objectives of the United States by enhancing the security of a partner country that is a force for political and economic stability in Europe,” the department said in a press release.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly said in recent weeks that Patriot missile systems are essential to defend against Russian attacks.
“Our soldiers have been very strong this year. Then we’re really building, trying to build an air defense shield to defend our civilians, but we still have a big deficit in Patriot missiles and other types of air defense,” Zelenskyy told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” two weeks ago.
The Ukrainian leader had accused the Pentagon of delaying the delivery of interceptor missiles that other countries purchased for Ukraine.
The announcement of the sale comes as President Donald Trump has recently stepped up his criticism of Zelensky and described him as an obstacle to efforts to end the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Zelenskyy also recently pointed out that Ukraine was even more exposed due to restrictions on the Starlink satellite internet service.
Ukraine said Saturday that Starlink, run by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, and its military variant, Starshield, were fully functional after a lengthy outage, two days after Trump said Musk had been asked to “hand it over.”
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