Zelensky: Ukraine averages 12 Patriot missiles a month, fires far more

Volodymyr Zelensky handed reporters a number that lands hard: Ukraine is receiving an average of only 12 Patriot interceptor missiles per month, according to Ukrinform. He described that dozen-a-month pace as what Ukraine will be getting in 2026.

The arithmetic he laid out is ugly. The United States signed off on a package of 12 interceptor missiles, Zelensky said — and Ukraine fired 35 this month, leaving him scrambling to find the other 23 somewhere else. He said he now spends every week piecing together new packages, new missiles, new defenses, because the threat from Russian ballistic missiles doesn't take a week off.

Zelensky described the PURL program as a long shopping list: 20-millimeter rounds for the F-16, HIMARS, Patriots and AIM missiles. Buying from the U.S. with Europe footing the bill has worked and deliveries have arrived, he said — but Patriot interceptors, in his words, are a major challenge.

He also recounted his pitch to Donald Trump in New York, where he asked for a winter package and specified how many missiles he needed. Zelensky said he told the U.S. president that if the missiles came, Ukraine wouldn't strike any oil refineries. Trump asked where to get them, Zelensky pointed to countries that hold them, and Trump said they'd do their best but that they don't have very many themselves.

There's a paperwork problem too, per the Ukrainian president. He said documents sit on the desk of the U.S. defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, that Hegseth signed and may believe are complete. They aren't, Zelensky said, pointing again to the gap between the 12-missile U.S. package and the 35 interceptors Ukraine used this month.

The frustration isn't new. Zelensky told TSN.Tyzhden that progress on Patriot missiles is real but painfully slow, with delays at the U.S. Department of Defense level on certain vital supplies, according to reports. In an interview with ABC News, he said Ukraine had received only 24 Patriot interceptors from the U.S. over the past three months — a number nowhere near what its air defenses need. His ask, as he put it, comes down to one thing: approval from the United States.