Volodymyr Zelenskyy held a meeting with a Raytheon team led by Vice President Joseph DeAntona.
As the head of state noted, Raytheon is “a very strong defense company, and Ukraine has long been using its equipment to protect our people from brutal Russian attacks.” “I am grateful for the company’s readiness to take our partnership to an even higher level, with Ukraine jointly producing with Raytheon some of the most important air-defence assets — interceptors for the Patriots. This is what President Trump and I discussed in Ankara, and it is time to move in this direction,” Zelenskyy emphasised.
The president added that during the meeting with partners they discussed other areas of cooperation related to non-offensive military equipment.
“Our teams — at the government level and from the private sector — will stay in contact to finalise everything,” Zelenskyy added.
- The U.S. president said at a meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart this month that the United States does not oppose Ukraine receiving the right to produce missiles for Patriot air-defence systems.
- Earlier, Zelenskyy reported that the United States initially took a cautious view of the idea of granting Ukraine production licenses. But the situation has now changed.
- According to Zelenskyy, current U.S. capacity allows for the production of no more than 700 missiles a year. The Americans have already localised part of the production in Europe by transferring the relevant licenses to Germany. Ukraine took advantage of this and signed a large-scale contract with the German side to produce 600 missiles. At the same time, Zelenskyy noted that fulfilling this order is a lengthy process, so Ukraine is seeking to launch its own production.
- The president stressed that Europe has all the necessary technical capabilities to start producing missiles for Patriot. The Ukrainian side has already established contacts with the management of all relevant European and American companies involved in the process.
- By the way, this month it became known that Poland, together with the United States, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden, will create in Europe a PAC-3 missile maintenance center for Patriot systems.