Ukraine is contracting about 1,000 missiles for its American-made Patriot air defense systems, but most arrive only in later years, so at the Ramstein meeting of its allies it asked for interceptors out of their existing stocks before winter, the Defense Ministry said. Nine governments announced new contributions there, and Germany was the only one to commit interceptors from its own stocks. The Ramstein format meeting is the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, a coalition of roughly 50 countries that coordinates weapons for Ukraine, named after the US air base in Germany where it first met in 2022.

Ukraine contracts for later, asks for stock now

Ukraine's Defense Minister Yevhenii Khmara told partners the country is signing for roughly 1,000 Patriot missiles, whose PAC-3 version is the only round in its arsenal that reliably stops Russian ballistic missiles, paid for with partner support and the European Union's credit line. Those deliveries take time. So Ukraine asked allies to release missiles from their warehouses now and take the improved contracted rounds later. It made the same case for air-to-air missiles and shoulder-fired launchers, which crews use against cruise missiles and, as a stopgap, against the jet-powered Shahed attack drones, the Iranian-designed weapons Russia now flies at Ukrainian cities by day.

The European Commission cleared the loan money for interceptors days earlier. How many rounds it buys depends on the price Washington sets.

What partners pledged

The ministry listed the results by country. 

• Germany promised interceptors for Patriot systems and for F-16 fighter jets, plus drone purchases. 

• The United Kingdom put up £100 million ($135 million) through PURL, short for the Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List, the NATO mechanism that lets allied and partner governments buy US-made arms for Ukraine. London added another 95,000 drones by the end of the year and tens of thousands of extended-range artillery shells financed by other countries.

• The Netherlands pledged $300 million for the Drone Line, Ukraine's program that holds a drone-strike zone over the front, and 300 counter-drone missiles.

• Estonia committed to keep its support at at least 0.25% of its economic output in 2027.

• Norway confirmed a previously announced $200 million for Patriot missiles. 

• Spain gave €2 million ($2.3 million) for fuel through NATO's procurement agency, plus air-defense missiles and artillery ammunition. 

• Lithuania put $10 million into PURL.

• Poland prepared a €50 million ($58 million) package including air-defense equipment.

• Sweden pledged $28 million, half of it to PURL.

It was the coalition's 36th session, co-chaired online by Germany and the United Kingdom according to the German Defense Ministry's invitation, and the first for Khmara and for Commander-in-Chief Mykhailo Drapatyi, the general who took over Ukraine's army in July.

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Brussels cleared Ukraine to spend EU loan money on American Patriot missiles for the coming winter of Russian attacks

Germany opens its own warehouse

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said he decided, alongside the NATO summit, to give Ukraine urgently needed PAC-2 interceptors, an older Patriot round, from the stocks of the Bundeswehr, Germany's armed forces, before winter. Russia has announced it will attack Ukraine's energy system. He told the others to check their reserves and do the same.

Germany will also step up deliveries of AIM-9 air-to-air missiles from the same stocks, the US-made rounds fighter jets fire at incoming drones and missiles, and keep delivering IRIS-T air defense systems, including serially produced guided missiles for them. Ukraine intends to order several thousand more IRIS-T rounds using the EU loan.

The money and the deadline

Allies allocated more than $10 billion over the past year for American weapons through PURL and the US foreign military sales program, $3.5 billion of it under the EU loan, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said. Khmara said partners promised €70 billion ($81 billion) this year, while Ukraine sees €62 billion, and the missing €8 billion is needed to meet that pledge, with the total defense deficit at €23 billion ($27 billion), according to the ministry's readout. He asked for those decisions by November. A day earlier, Ukraine handed the alliance a list of priority air- and missile-defense needs, the Defense Ministry reported.

Two timelines at the table

Elbridge Colby, the US under secretary of war for policy and the Pentagon's top policy official, told the group his department cannot predict when the war ends, that Russia is rebuilding its forces and defense industry, and that Ukraine's needs will persist for months and years. Europeans already lead on conventional defense and provide most of the support, he said.

Russia is expanding its manpower too, and by Ukraine's estimate plans to mobilize about 300,000 more soldiers this year and the same in 2027, Khmara said, Radio Svoboda reported. He presented the war plan Ukrainian forces now operate under, and said their drone kill zone stops Russian advances and kills more than 30,000 Russian soldiers a month, by the military's own count.