The US approves the possible sale of 500 Patriot PAC-3 MSE missiles to Ukraine for $2.1 billion

The State Department on Friday, October 30 approved the possible sale of 500 Patriot PAC-3 MSE missiles to Ukraine at an estimated cost of $2.1 billion. The decision, announced in a department notice reported by CNN, comes after Ukraine’s Patriot missile stocks ran out earlier in October, as the network had reported.

On Thursday, October 29, Volodymyr Zelensky wrote that, according to intelligence, the Russians are preparing new ballistic-missile attacks, and that Kyiv is waiting for partners’ decisions on packages of interceptors, mainly for Patriot. In Friday’s video the Ukrainian president returned to the Patriot shortage and said Russia attacked overnight with 17 ballistic missiles, some of which hit oil-refining infrastructure in central Ukraine. We covered his earlier appeal in Zelensky’s remarks on Patriot deliveries.

Who pays

The PAC-3 MSE is the most advanced Patriot variant in service and one of the few weapons able to shoot down incoming ballistic missiles. The purchase will not be subsidised or financed by the US. Ukraine will cover the cost with money from Canada, Germany and Norway and with a European Union loan. Asked whether components of the missiles might be manufactured in Ukraine with offsets, the State Department said it was not aware of any such agreement with Lockheed Martin, which builds the missile, and that the matter could be negotiated directly between Kyiv and the company.

The production issue has been open since July, when Trump announced at the NATO summit in Turkey that Ukraine would receive a licence to produce its own Patriot missiles. The move could in time relieve US production lines at a time of munitions shortage tied to the war in Iran and rising international demand. A Ukrainian missile plant, however, would take years, and Trump appears to have backed away. For the missile’s production pace, see our analysis of the Patriot PAC-3 MSE.

Weeks of friction

The approval follows weeks of friction between Washington and Kyiv. In October Trump announced a deal allowing Russian diesel exports into international energy markets and waived enforcement of another package of sanctions on Russian fossil-fuel sales that had just become law. He also threatened to withhold intelligence from Kyiv over strikes on Russian refineries, while Ukraine’s access to the Starshield satellite system was restricted for a time and restored last week.