An official said it was possible to make Patriot interceptors inside Ukraine, but the timeline was unclear. The statement came after President Donald Trump told Volodymyr Zelensky that the US would grant Ukraine a license to produce Patriot missiles. 

“Don’t listen to the pessimists. Producing missiles for Patriot in Ukraine is possible,” Ukrainian Defense Ministry adviser Serhii Beskrestnov wrote on Telegram Thursday. “The only problem is time. All of this could take a year or more. It is impossible to estimate the timeline even approximately because we do not know, for example, how long subcontractors will need to manufacture various components.”

Patriot missiles, one of America’s most advanced interceptors, take years to produce in the US,, and plants can only make 600 per year. Ukraine will face challenges such as setting up supply chains and avoiding Russian attacks. 

Patriot interceptors are critical to Kiev’s missile defense. Earlier this week, Zelensky called for allies to donate more Patriots as Ukraine was unable to down Russian ballistic missiles. “Our warriors performed well today in intercepting drones and cruise missiles, but unfortunately not Russian ballistic missiles,” Zelensky said on Monday. “The reason lies in the insufficient supply of interceptor missiles.”

In an interview with the Financial Times, Zelensky said missile defense was Ukraine’s greatest weakness. “There remains only one unknown,” he told the outlet. “Unfortunately, it is anti-ballistic defense. That is the major weakness [for Ukraine] in this equation.”

The war has escalated in recent weeks as Ukraine has hit Russian targets far from the front lines. Moscow has responded by firing more ballistic missiles. Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said Russia was “launching [ballistic missiles] at a scale not previously seen while exploiting the critical shortage of interceptor missiles for Patriot air defense systems.”