German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius is set to discuss the possibility of Germany paying for American Patriot air defence systems for Ukraine, as he heads to Washington to meet with U.S. Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth.

On Sunday, U.S. President Donald Trump said the U.S. would send an undisclosed number of Patriots to Ukraine, and that the European Union would pay for them.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has asked for more defensive capabilities, among them Patriot systems and missiles, to fend off daily missile and drone attacks from Russia.

Here is some key information about the Patriot:

The Patriot, short for Phased Array Tracking Radar for Intercept on Target, is a mobile surface-to-air missile defense system developed by Raytheon Technologies RTX.N.

It is considered one of the most advanced air defence systems in the U.S. arsenal and has been in service since the 1980s.

A typical battery includes radar and control systems, a power unit, launchers, and support vehicles. The system can intercept aircraft, tactical ballistic missiles and cruise missiles, depending on the interceptor used.

The system has different capabilities depending on the type of interceptor used.

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The earlier PAC-2 interceptor uses a blast-fragmentation warhead that detonates in the vicinity of a target, while the PAC-3 family of missiles uses more accurate technology that hits the target directly.

It is not clear what kind of Patriot systems have been donated to Ukraine, but it is likely that Kyiv has at least some of the newer PAC-3 CRI interceptors.

1:57
Russia launches record drone attack on Ukraine after Trump slams Putin

The system’s radar has a range of over 150 km (93 miles), the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) said in 2015.

Although the Patriot was not originally designed to intercept hypersonic weapons and Raytheon has not yet confirmed if it is able to do so, in May 2023 the U.S. confirmed Ukraine had used it to shoot down a Russian Kinzhal missile, which Moscow claims is hypersonic.

Since January 2015, the Patriot has intercepted more than 150 ballistic missiles in combat operations, Raytheon says on its website.

Raytheon has built and delivered over 240 Patriot fire units, according to its website.

These have been shipped to 19 countries, according to Raytheon, including the U.S., Germany, Poland, Ukraine, Japan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

In January, Axios reported the U.S. had transferred about 90 Patriot interceptors from Israel to Ukraine.

A newly produced single Patriot battery costs over US$1 billion, including US$400 million for the system and $690 million for the missiles in a battery, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Patriot interceptors are estimated at around US$4 million per missile, CSIS says.

Kyiv has consistently asked Western allies for more air defences to protect critical infrastructure and civilian areas from frequent Russian missile and drone attacks.

While effective at intercepting missiles and aircraft, Patriots are a costly way to shoot down low-budget drones.

Still, Ukrainian officials say they are essential to defending key targets from Russia’s escalating long-range attacks.

Russia says it sees the Patriots as a direct escalation. Foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in May that supplying more systems to Ukraine would delay the chances of peace.

—Reporting by Isabel Demetz and Jesus Calero; Editing by Matt Scuffham

U.S. President Donald Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine and Russia, retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, was in Kyiv on Monday, a senior Ukrainian official said, as anticipation grew over a possible shift in the Trump administration’s policy on the three-year war.

Trump last week said he would make a “major statement” on Russia on Monday. Trump made quickly stopping the war one of his diplomatic priorities, and he has increasingly expressed frustration about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s unbudging stance on U.S-led peace efforts.

Trump has long boasted of his friendly relationship with Putin, and after taking office in January repeatedly said that Russia was more willing than Ukraine to reach a peace deal. At the same time, Trump accused Zelenskyy of prolonging the war and called him a “dictator without elections.”

But Russia’s relentless onslaught against civilian areas of Ukraine wore down Trump’s patience. In April, Trump urged Putin to “STOP!” launching deadly barrages on Kyiv, and the following month said in a social media post that the Russian leader “ has gone absolutely CRAZY!” as the bombardments continued.

“I am very disappointed with President Putin, I thought he was somebody that meant what he said,” Trump said late Sunday. “He’ll talk so beautifully and then he’ll bomb people at night. We don’t like that.”

Russia has pounded Ukrainian cities, including the capital, Kyiv, with hundreds of drones and cruise and ballistic missiles that Ukraine’s air defences are struggling to counter. June brought the highest monthly civilian casualties of the past three years, with 232 people killed and 1,343 wounded, the U.N. human rights mission in Ukraine said. Russia launched 10 times more drones and missiles in June than in the same month last year, it said.

At the same time, Russia’s bigger army is making a new effort to drive back Ukrainian defenders on parts of the 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line.

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Trump confirmed the U.S. is sending Ukraine more badly needed Patriot air defence missiles and that the European Union will pay the U.S. for the “various pieces of very sophisticated” weaponry.

While the EU is not allowed under its treaties to buy weapons, EU member countries can and are, just as NATO member countries are buying and sending weapons.

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Russia launches barrage of drones, missiles at Kyiv as US resumes Ukraine weapons deliveries

Germany has offered to finance two new Patriot systems and is awaiting official talks on the possibility of more, government spokesperson Stefan Kornelius said Monday in Berlin.

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius was traveling to Washington on Monday to meet with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Germany has already given three of its own Patriot systems to Ukraine, and Pistorius was quoted as saying in an interview with the Financial Times that it now has only six.

A top ally of Trump, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, said Sunday that the conflict is nearing an inflection point as Trump shows growing interest in helping Ukraine fight back against Russia’s full-scale invasion. It’s a cause that Trump had previously dismissed as being a waste of U.S. taxpayer money.

“In the coming days, you’ll see weapons flowing at a record level to help Ukraine defend themselves,” Graham said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” He added: “One of the biggest miscalculations Putin has made is to play Trump. And you just watch, in the coming days and weeks, there’s going to be a massive effort to get Putin to the table.”

Kirill Dmitriev, Putin’s envoy for international investment who took part in talks with U.S. officials in Saudi Arabia in February, dismissed what he said were efforts to drive a wedge between Moscow and Washington.

“Constructive dialogue between Russia and the United States is more effective than doomed-to-fail attempts at pressure,” Dmitriev said in a post on Telegram. “This dialogue will continue, despite titanic efforts to disrupt it by all possible means.”

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte was due in Washington on Monday and Tuesday. He planned to hold talks with Trump, Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, as well as members of Congress.

Talks during Kellogg’s visit to Kyiv will cover “defense, strengthening security, weapons, sanctions, protection of our people and enhancing cooperation between Ukraine and the United States,” said the head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Andrii Yermak.

“Russia does not want a cease fire. Peace through strength is President Donald Trump’s principle, and we support this approach,” Yermak said.

1:57
Russia launches record drone attack on Ukraine after Trump slams Putin

Russian troops conducted a combined aerial strike at Shostka, in the northern Sumy region of Ukraine, using glide bombs and drones early Monday morning, killing two people, the regional prosecutor’s office said. Four others were injured, including a seven-year-old, it said.

Overnight from Sunday to Monday, Russia fired four S-300/400 missiles and 136 Shahed and decoy drones at Ukraine, the air force said. It said that 61 drones were intercepted and 47 more were either jammed or lost from radars mid-flight.

The Russian Defense Ministry, meanwhile, said its air defences downed 11 Ukrainian drones over Russian regions on the border with Ukraine, as well as over the annexed Crimea and the Black Sea.

—Associated Press writers Lorne Cook in Brussels and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.

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