Trump to send Patriot missiles to Ukraine, but US Is ‘not paying’ for them

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Trump to send Patriot missiles to Ukraine, but US Is ‘not paying’ for them

4:53 CAT | 14 Jul 2025

US President Donald Trump speaks with the media on arrival at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on July 13, 2025 [Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP]

President Donald Trump said the US will send more Patriot air-defense batteries to Ukraine in an apparent shift to a more confrontational stance toward Russia after his attempts to negotiate a ceasefire failed.

“I haven’t agreed on the number yet, but they are going to have some,” the president told reporters Sunday on his way back to the White House. “We will get them Patriots, which they desperately need.”

The announcement sets the scene for what Trump described would be his “major statement” on Russia on Monday as Moscow steps up airstrikes against Ukraine. The US president has grown increasingly exasperated with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intransigence in talks to end the war, which is currently in its fourth year.

But it wasn’t immediately clear whether the statement is going to include a promise of any fresh military aid beyond potentially using the $3.8 billion left from the package approved under the previous administration of President Joe Biden. A new sanctions bill against Russia has also been making its way through Congress.

Trump said the US “is not paying anything” for the potential supply of the new batteries, which he said will be financed by the European Union. Last week he said it would be NATO that will pay for “those weapons, 100%.” A single Patriot battery system could cost more than $1 billion with missiles an additional around $4 million each.

The US wants to make a lot more weapons available to Ukraine, but also wants other, non-US funding, according to a senior NATO official, who asked not to be identified in order to speak more freely. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization would play the role of a coordinator with individual member states making the purchases, the person said.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte is going to meet with Trump on Monday during a two-day visit to Washington after they spoke by phone on Thursday. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius is also due in the US capital. Berlin is in talks with the Trump administration to provide Ukraine with two additional Patriot systems and cover the full costs for the much-needed deliveries.

The move signals a change of heart for Trump, who had held off approving any new weapons shipments to Ukraine since the start of his second term. Instead, he had sought to coax Putin to the negotiating table, arguing that he could get a halt to the conflict where Biden had failed.

Trump had previously refused to consider seeking additional funds, arguing that it would only harden Putin’s stance and dim chances to end the fighting.

The US president lashed out at his Russian counterpart last week after Putin repeatedly hit Ukrainian cities with a record number of drones and missiles and sidestepped calls for a ceasefire.

Trump’s latest plan to send more military aid to Ukraine comes after the Pentagon earlier this month unexpectedly paused some key weapon shipments, citing low stockpiles. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Friday that the US had resumed shipping the aid.

Trump added that he is very disappointed with Putin. “He talks nice and then he bombs everybody in the evening,” he said.

He declined to say last week whether his announcement would include new sanctions. However, Trump said he expected the Senate to pass a tougher Russia sanctions bill sponsored by a close ally, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

The legislation would give Trump discretion to hit US trading partners including China and India with 500% tariffs on their products if they make any purchases of Russian oil, gas or other products under sanctions, potentially wreaking havoc on the oil market.

“A turning point regarding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is coming,” Graham said on CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday. “I expect, in the coming days, you will see weapons flowing at a record level to help Ukraine defend themselves” and “that there will be tariffs and sanctions available to President Trump he has never had before.”

During his presidential campaign and his first months in office, Trump had cast Zelenskiy as the obstacle to peace, and bemoaned the US military and financial support his country has received. In February, he derided the Ukrainian leader as a “modestly successful comedian” and a “dictator.”

The halt on weapons had provoked fears that the US was backing away from Ukraine for good and unwilling to intervene to repel Russia’s slow but steady advance.

Zelenskiy said an earlier meeting with US and European allies in Rome stoked optimism that Trump would ramp up military aid to the war-battered country, including air defense.

The meeting of the so-called coalition of the willing — which included US special envoy for Ukraine Keith Kellogg — came hours after another deadly Russian drone-and-missile assault on Kyiv. The Ukrainian leader said he’d had a “positive dialogue” with the US president over the delivery of more Patriots.

Kellogg arrived in Kyiv on Monday. He will meet the Ukrainian army chief, the head of the Security Service of Ukraine and intelligence officials in Kyiv during his visit to discuss further aid, Zelenskiy said in his evening address on Sunday.

Source: Bloomberg