Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has secured a pledge from President Donald Trump to allow Kyiv to produce U.S. Patriot air defense missiles, but defense experts say it could take at least a year to start producing them.

Challenges Ahead

With its chronic shortage of interceptor missiles likely to continue until then, Kyiv faces tough choices over which targets are a priority to defend as Russia keeps pounding its cities and energy infrastructure.

Patriot interceptor missiles are vital for Ukraine’s defense at a time when Zelenskiy says Russia, whose battlefield advances have stalled, is trying to leverage its advantage in ballistic missiles by hitting Ukraine hard.

The Patriot is the only weapon in Kyiv’s arsenal capable of stopping Russian ballistic missiles. Ukraine has brought down only four of the 54 much-faster ballistic missiles launched by Russia this month.

Production Delays

Experts say the time needed to build an assembly plant and organize contractors means production of Patriot PAC-2 interceptors made by Raytheon, or the more sophisticated PAC-3 from Lockheed, will not start soon enough to ease Ukraine’s situation in the near future.

“Short term, the impact will be very limited,” said Fabian Hoffmann, a missile expert at the Norwegian Institute for Defense Studies in Oslo. “I would be very surprised if this is faster than 12 months. I would assume significantly longer.”

Ukraine has managed to fast-track military development in the war since Russia’s 2022 invasion, but defense experts say building a system to down missiles traveling at several times the speed of sound is the toughest challenge in missile technology.

Original reporting: Appleton, WI News Feed (HLL/CB) — read the source article.