The European Commission has formally approved €6.1 billion ($7.1 billion) for Ukraine's air defense, drones, and missiles, EU Defense and Space Commissioner Andrius Kubilius announced on 12 September. The decision lets Ukraine order American Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) interceptors for its Patriot launchers, and it includes five exceptions to the EU's own purchasing rules. With it, all the defense money Europe set aside for Ukraine this year has been assigned.

What the decision unlocks

The funding will support Ukraine's ability to withstand what Kubilius called the continued intensification of Russian ballistic missile and drone strikes.

The money comes from the €90 billion ($105 billion) loan the EU built for Ukraine, of which €60 billion ($70 billion) is set aside for weapons across 2026 and 2027. One route runs through PURL, the arrangement under which allied governments pay for American weapons and NATO organizes delivery.

Five exceptions to Europe's own rules

The package carries five exemptions from the loan's standard purchasing rules, Kubilius said. Three of them cover Ukrainian-made drones and components that cost more than the rules allow. The other two cover American equipment, including the PAC-3 missiles.

The exceptions are what was settled this week. The Commission had signed off on the €6.1 billion package on 24 August, covering air and missile defense systems, missiles, ammunition, and radars. What remained was the rules governing how the money could be spent.

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This year's money is all committed

All €28.3 billion ($33 billion) allocated for Ukraine's defense from the loan in 2026 has now been agreed, Kubilius said.

Earlier slices went the same way. In July, the Commission released €3.47 billion ($4 billion) for drones, missiles, air defense, and Swedish Gripen fighter jets, the first 16 of which reach Ukraine in early 2027. On 8 September Brussels approved Ukraine's own application, filed five days earlier, to spend more than €2 billion ($2.3 billion) of loan money on Patriot interceptors.

What money cannot buy quickly

An approval is not a delivery. The 1,000 Patriot interceptors Ukraine has ordered arrive too late for this winter, which is why Kyiv asked allied governments to release rounds from their warehouses now and accept replacements later. A sum above €2 billion buys somewhere between roughly 190 and 580 interceptors, depending on the price Washington sets.

Russia, meanwhile, turns out about 100 of its deadliest missiles a month, 60 of them Iskander-Ms, and about 3,000 jet-powered drones in the same period. Ukraine intercepted one of the 57 ballistic missiles fired in the first eight days of August.