Ukraine's been waiting almost a month for Hegseth to sign off on Patriot missiles, Zelenskyy says

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Ukraine said it has waited weeks for the US to sign off on crucial missile interceptors. US Army photo

Kyiv has been waiting nearly a month for US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to sign off on crucial missile interceptors, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday.

Zelenskyy said Ukraine has been waiting on approval to procure interceptors for its Patriot and NASAMS systems. The former is the country's most reliable defense against Russian ballistic missiles.

The Ukrainian president said that he instructed his team "to raise this with the American side once again. Conversations with other countries are also ongoing."

Most of the interceptors for Ukraine's air defense systems, including its Patriot batteries, are supplied through NATO's Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List (PURL) initiative, in which allies and partners buy weapons from the US and then transfer them to Kyiv.

It is unclear how many interceptors have been held up, or why Hegseth had not signed off on their transfer.

A senior Pentagon official told Business Insider "there has been no change" to department policy "regarding intelligence sharing or any capabilities we are enabling Europeans to provide to Ukraine."

The Patriot system makes up the top tier of Ukraine's air defense network. David Poe/Fort Bliss Public Affairs Office

The PURL initiative "continues unaltered," the official added.

Ukraine has faced repeated interceptor shortages, making it difficult to effectively defend against worsening Russian ballistic missile attacks, which, alongside armed jet-powered drones, have hammered Kyiv in a series of deadly bombardments.

The American-made MIM-104 Patriot surface-to-air missile system is a key piece of Kyiv's defensive umbrella. Ukrainian officials have urged the US and European allies to send more interceptors — PAC-2 and PAC-3 models in particular. Global munitions stockpiles, however, are under increased strain.

"We are working on several tracks — with the United States, Europe, and other partners that have stocks of PAC-2 and PAC-3 missiles," Zelenskyy said Monday in a social media post.

The Iran war has put tremendous stress on munition stockpiles. Col. Yurii Ihnat, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian Air Force, said on Monday that the Patriot interceptors fired by the US and its Middle East allies during the Iran war could have supported Kyiv's defenses for several years.

The NASAMS (National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System) — a joint US-Norwegian project — is another important element of Ukraine's air defense network. It is not designed to engage ballistic missiles like the Patriot, but rather short- and medium-range targets such as aircraft, cruise missiles, and drones.

NASAMS is designed for shorter-range threats than the Patriot, like drones and cruise missiles. REUTERS/Ints Kalnins

Zelenskyy's comment comes amid broader tensions between Ukraine and the US, which have escalated in recent weeks.

The Trump administration has publicly denounced Ukrainian drone strikes targeting Russian energy facilities, with Washington blaming Kyiv for high oil and diesel prices. Industry experts, however, have identified the Iran war as a major source of disruption in global markets.

In October, Ukrainian officials reported multiple instances where Kyiv did not receive any advance warning of Russian ballistic missile launches from international partners through usual channels, leaving it little to no time to detect them before impact. The apparent suspension of intelligence sharing was lifted after a few days.

Ukraine also experienced a sudden disruption of its Starshield services, the military-grade version of Starlink, earlier this month, with speed caps affecting drone operations, logistics, and communication, said sources in Kyiv's defense ministry.

On Saturday, Ukrainian Defense Minister Yevhenii Khmara said that monitoring systems had recorded speed recovery for Starshield and Starlink, SpaceX's commercial satellite internet service.

The incident has raised alarms among Ukrainian officials. Elon Musk, the SpaceX CEO, accused Kyiv of breaching Starlink's terms of service by using the civilian service for drone strikes and said last weekend that this ultimately led to the disruption. Some of Kyiv's top drone advisors have pushed back on that argument.