Zelenskyj waits a month for Hegseth signature on Patriot missiles
Ukraine's air defence sits in a US approval queue while Russia fires 2300 drones in a week, November trilateral talks proceed between deliveries
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Zelenskyy calls out monthlong wait for Hegseth to sign off on Patriots
euronews.com
Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday that Ukraine has been waiting nearly a month for US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth to sign off on deliveries of interceptor missiles for its Patriot and NASAMS air defence systems. "We have been waiting for nearly a month for Mr. Hegseth to sign off on missiles for Patriots and NASAMS," he wrote on social media, adding that he had instructed his team to raise the issue with Washington once again.
The wait comes as Russian forces fired 48 missiles, including ballistic weapons, roughly 1,600 guided aerial bombs and close to 2,300 attack drones at Ukraine over the past week, according to Zelenskyy's own tally. Strikes on Odesa and Zaporizhzhia injured four people; separate attacks killed four and injured 28, according to authorities. "We need to unblock the deliveries of Patriot interceptors already approved by European countries," he wrote.
Ukraine receives most of its Patriot missiles through NATO's Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List, which lets allies purchase US munitions — as of June, they had committed more than six billion dollars of equipment through the scheme. The purchases still require a signature in Washington. It is unclear how many missiles sit awaiting Hegseth's approval; Ukrainian media describe the number as sizeable.
Global interceptor stocks are under strain after the American war with Iran. A Pentagon inspector general report published in September found US forces fired 22.3 billion dollars worth of munitions between late February and the end of June. Colonel Yurii Ihnat of the Ukrainian military said in an interview published Monday that the quantity of Patriot missiles expended in the Middle East could have supported several years of combat operations in Ukraine.
Zelenskyy confirmed that trilateral talks with Russia and the United States will proceed in November — the first such contact since February. Between now and then, the interceptors his cities depend on remain queued behind one signature in Washington.