Brussels announced on Friday a new tranche of military aid amounting to €6.1 billion to Ukraine, notably intended for the purchase of American Patriot interceptors, as Kyiv requests about 300 of these missiles to get through the winter.
The European Union will release an additional €6.1 billion to enable Ukraine to acquire military equipment. This amount constitutes the final tranche of the €28.3 billion envelope reserved for defense aid under the bloc’s €90 billion support loan. To date, €8.35 billion has already been disbursed, with payments made in stages after Brussels verifies contracts signed by Kyiv with private companies.
To facilitate these purchases, the “Made in Europe” requirement attached to the loan will be lifted. This exemption opens the way for acquiring Patriot systems, manufactured in the United States, as well as drones incorporating Chinese components.
The European Commissioner for Defense, Andrius Kubilius, justified the urgency of the measure during a press conference: “Ukraine’s military advance depends on the rapid availability of essential products, in sufficient quantities and within short deadlines.” He added that “accelerating EU deliveries by drawing on existing stocks, rescheduling orders, and increasing production remains crucial.”
The shortage of PAC-3 interceptors, produced by Lockheed Martin, heavily weighs on Ukraine’s capacity to counter Russian ballistic missiles. Moscow has exploited this weakness to intensify its airstrikes. Each PAC-3 interceptor requires a manufacturing time of twenty-four months and costs about four million dollars. The war in the Middle East has further extended already significant production delays.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky estimates that his army will need about 300 interceptors to safely get through the winter, as Russia intensifies its bombing campaign, notably with jet drones, ahead of a season European officials anticipate as the most difficult since the conflict began.
To accelerate transfers, Brussels is seeking to convince member states still holding Patriot batteries in their national stocks to transfer them to Ukraine, with the promise to replace them through deliveries planned for 2027. “The Ukrainians, from what we understand, will do everything possible to obtain as many interceptors as possible before winter,” said Andrius Kubilius, specifying that “NATO is also working intensively on this matter,” referring to the Alliance’s PURL program mobilizing American weapons for Kyiv.
The announcement coincided with the first meeting of the EU-Ukraine Drone Alliance, which brought together 18 European and nine Ukrainian companies. This initiative, based on the agreement signed in July between the EU and Ukraine, aims to combine the bloc’s industrial capacity and Ukrainian expertise to develop joint production of unmanned aerial vehicles.
