Ukraine, Trump: ‘I haven’t decided yet on the Patriot licence’

Another night of fighting in Ukraine. Russia launched an attack with 255 drones, and Kyiv’s air defences shot down 195 remotely piloted aircraft, but attacks were reported in 14 locations. The current death toll stands at nine dead and 48 injured. In addition to Lviv, the Russian armed forces also attacked four districts in the Dnipropetrovsk region using drones, artillery and air strikes. The drones were launched from the Russian cities of Oryol and Kursk, as well as from the temporarily occupied cities of Donetsk and Hvardiiske in Crimea.

On the Russian front, air defence systems intercepted and destroyed 371 Ukrainian drones over Russian regions, as well as over the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, according to a report from the Ministry of Defence in Moscow. ‘Overnight, air defence forces on duty intercepted and destroyed 371 Ukrainian drones over the territories of the Belgorod, Bryansk, Voronezh, Volgograd, Kursk, Rostov and Tula regions, in the Krasnodar Territory, the Republic of Dagestan, the Republic of Crimea, the Republic of Tatarstan and over the waters of the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea,” the statement read, as reported by TASS.

Meanwhile, negotiations are continuing over the US licence for the production of Patriot missiles, as requested by the Ukrainian defence forces. In an interview with the Financial Times, US President Donald Trump stated that he had not yet decided whether to allow Ukraine to produce surface-to-air interceptor missiles, raising doubts about Washington’s willingness to grant one of Kyiv’s key requests. Trump said he was ‘uncertain’ about granting Ukraine a licence to produce Patriot missiles, adding that the matter was ‘under review’. “It is an extraordinary weapon and we must be very careful about who we grant the licence to. As a rule, we do not grant licences for these technologies.”

At the NATO summit in Turkey in early July, the US President had stated that Washington would grant Kyiv a licence to produce Patriot missiles, and Trump’s latest comments come just two days after his meeting at the White House with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky, who described it as ‘positive’, reporting that the two leaders had discussed the ‘production of Patriot interceptors and various other ideas’.

The air defence system is crucial to Ukraine’s ability to intercept Russian ballistic missiles targeting Kyiv and other cities. Following Tuesday’s meeting at the White House, the Ukrainian president stated that Trump “had agreed to grant us the licences”. Trump told the Financial Times that his focus is on ending Russia’s war in Ukraine, adding that his two envoys, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, will travel to Ukraine for the first time in the coming days. “Put simply, we want the war between Russia and Ukraine to end,” he said. “I’m not looking for missiles. I’m looking for peace,” he concluded.