In late May, Zelensky confirmed that Ukraine had formally asked the United States to authorize licensed production of Patriots.

After four and a half years of war, frontline fighting has largely stalled, the Black Sea is paralyzed, and Ukraine has generally learned to counter the hundreds of drones Russia fires at it every night.

But ballistic missiles, which Zelensky called Russia’s “last great advantage,” travel at high speed and along a steep path that makes them difficult to stop.

Many manage to break through Ukraine’s depleted air defenses.

Earlier this week, the Ukrainian Air Force said a “serious shortage” of interceptor missiles meant that none of the 23 ballistic missiles fired by Russia on Sunday night were shot down. More than 20 people died in that attack.

Trump said the United States would give kyiv the license to produce Patriots so it couldn’t “complain that we’re not giving them enough.”

In kyiv, there was a degree of skepticism about the possibility that interceptor missiles could be produced on Ukrainian territory at this stage.

Military expert Ivan Stupak, a former security service officer, told the BBC that while the Patriots were vital to Ukraine’s defense: “Unfortunately, Ukraine is not capable of producing that type of advanced ammunition, because it is really sophisticated, state-of-the-art equipment.”

“Technically and legally, I think this will be deployed on European soil and monitored,” he added, and it could take many months.

During the press conference, Trump acknowledged that Ukraine had recently had significant success in launching long-range strikes against Russia, which have hit targets thousands of miles away from the front line.

“It’s an escalation, but it’s also an escalation that can help bring about an end,” Trump said.

Sitting next to Trump, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Ukraine’s attacks on Russian refineries were necessary to show Moscow “how difficult it is to defend its airspace” and thus pressure the Kremlin to end the war.

In his comments, Trump also claimed that Vladimir Putin, with whom he said he spoke often, wanted to reach a deal to end the war with Ukraine, which began with Russia’s full-scale invasion of the country in 2022.

The US president has made similar comments before, but to date his efforts to mediate talks between kyiv and Moscow have yielded no results.

It is not the first time that Trump mentioned the possibility of Zelensky and Putin meeting to discuss ending the conflict.

Putin has repeatedly said he would be open to such a meeting, but only if it were held in Moscow. Although many have interpreted the invitation as a provocation (the Kremlin knows that it is highly unlikely that Zelensky will agree to travel to Russia), Trump asked the Ukrainian president on Wednesday if he was prepared to go to the Russian capital.

“It’s difficult: there are a lot of Ukrainian drones there,” Zelensky joked, alluding to Ukraine’s long-range drone strikes against Moscow.