Ukraine receives Patriot air defense systems, and it’s just the beginning. The US and its allies have provided the systems under a new scheme in which European nations foot the bill for American weapons supplied to Kyiv, The Washington Post reports. 

Two more is on the way

Germany has already delivered three Patriots. One more is under discussion with the US, while Berlin has pledged to help provide a total of five.

Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has confirmed this during a meeting of Ukraine’s allies, without going into further detail.

Ukraine aims for ten systems

Kyiv is aiming to receive ten Patriots under the new arrangement. Some batteries could even come from outside NATO. For instance, Switzerland has agreed to redirect five systems it had previously ordered to Ukraine, and will receive its own later.

Under the new scheme, Ukraine will also receive advanced radars, electronic warfare systems, drone interceptors, and artillery platforms, according to two informed officials.

Long-range missiles? Germany says no, the US still weighing options

Meanwhile, the issue of long-range weapons remains unresolved. Germany has already ruled out supplying Taurus cruise missiles. The US has not provided a clear signal. NATO officials are not ready to confirm that such transfers will not happen in the future, despite US President Donald Trump’s refusal.

German Major General Christian Freuding urged Ukraine to develop more efficient air defense systems, warning that Russia aims to launch 2,000 drones simultaneously in future attacks.

So far, the largest single drone assault by Russia on Ukraine since the start of the full-scale invasion involved 728 Shahed-type and decoy drones, alongside 13 missiles, and occurred on 9 July.

Speaking on the Bundeswehr program “Nachgefragt,” General Freuding highlighted the economic disparity in current defense methods. The former chief military coordinator of German aid to Ukraine noted that using Patriot missiles costing over 5 million euros to intercept Shahed drones worth 30,000 to 50,000 euros represents an unsustainable approach.

“We must consider intelligent countermeasures,” Freuding stated, advocating for defensive systems priced between 2,000 and 4,000 euros per unit.

The general also suggested preemptive strikes targeting Russian aircraft, airfields, and military-industrial facilities as an alternative strategy. Ukraine has already demonstrated this approach works.

In response, Ukraine is rapidly accelerating the development and deployment of low-cost interceptor drones to counter increasingly frequent Russian drone attacks, especially the Iranian-designed Shahed kamikaze UAVs.

They’re capable of shooting down about 70% of incoming threats, nearly doubling the success rate of traditional mobile fire teams.

President Zelenskyy emphasized that while the technology is proven, Ukraine urgently needs international financial support to mass-produce and deploy these interceptors to defend against the escalating drone assaults.

In June, Ukraine received a significant $4 billion boost from the G7 summit to accelerate the mass production of these advanced drone interceptors. Four Ukrainian companies are engaged in developing these interceptors, two showing notable success, with large-scale production agreements secured with Germany and Canada. 

The top Ukrainian UAV commander Robert Brovdi (aka Madiar) stated earlier that the war with Russia will continue beyond 2025, as Russian forces still send more infantry than Ukraine can destroy, while Ukraine faces shortages in mobilization resources and numerical inferiority.

He emphasized that “everyone who wanted to fight is already fighting,” so Ukraine’s strategy is shifting towards replacing infantry with unmanned ground-based drones and constructing a massive, multi-layered “drone wall” to intercept incoming Russian attacks. His Drone Line project aims to create a 10-15 kilometer “kill zone” to prevent enemy advances and includes boosting domestic production of drone munitions.