Zelensky says Trump gave final OK on Patriot license for Ukraine

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday that President Trump will allow Ukraine to build Patriot missiles with “concrete agreements” in place between Kyiv and Washington.

“There are concrete agreements regarding Patriot licenses,” Zelensky posted online , days after the two met on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

“At our meeting, President Trump stressed that he had made his final decision: Ukraine will receive licenses to produce Patriot missiles,” the Ukrainian leader wrote.

Zelensky spent his time at the General Assembly warning nations of Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying he was “patient zero” in spreading the infection of war across the globe.

“Putin is always looking for someone who can help him kill more, kill more people for every kilometer of land, take more territory, attack another country instead of simply stopping and running his own country,” he said during his speech Wednesday.

“After all of this, can you even imagine him without war? He is patient zero, the one from whom this idea of war keeps spreading further,” Zelensky continued, adding that the more freedom Putin has to act, “the more dangerous the world becomes for everyone else.”

Ukraine, which is now in its fifth year of war with Russia, has repeatedly requested that the U.S. allow the country to build Patriot missiles to defend its cities against an onslaught of Kremlin missile and drone attacks.

Russian forces have recently escalated their campaign against the war-torn country using ballistic missiles and jet-powered drones to strike Ukraine’s power grid ahead of the harsh winter season.

This past July on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Turkey, Trump said the U.S. would allow Ukraine to co-produce Patriot missiles — an improvement in the relationship between himself and Zelensky — but the deal appeared to stall shortly thereafter.

Patriot interceptors, which can take more than two years to produce because of their highly technical nature, also are in short supply amid the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran.

To speed things up, Zelensky said earlier this year that he’s looking at working with U.S. defense contractors to restructure Ukrainian-made ballistic missiles to become Patriot interceptors. That comment came after he met with representatives of Lockheed Martin and Raytheon during a visit to Washington, D.C.

Such manufacturing can’t come soon enough for Ukraine, as it possesses just 10 percent of the interceptor missiles it needs to fend off Russian attacks, the Ukrainian leader told CNN in August.

Zelensky also said Friday that the Trump administration proposed setting up three-way talks among the U.S., Ukraine and Russia, with the United Arab Emirates floated as the location.

“We will brief the European side and discuss these details with them, the Americans will talk to the Russians, and in 10 days’ time we will return with a particular perspective and a result,” he told reporters, adding that Moscow has made no commitments to such talks.