Russian President Vladimir Putin “has gone absolutely CRAZY!” Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social on Sunday. His outburst was in response to a massive 900-drone and missile attack on Ukraine.
Included in the barrage were nine long-range ICBM missiles that Ukraine is finding it increasingly difficult to intercept. The ICBMs are targeted at the Ukrainian power grid and other infrastructure.
Only the U.S.-made Patriot Missiles are effective against the Russian ICBMs. Ukraine has requested additional missiles and launchers “which, frankly, we don’t have,” said Secretary of State Marco Rubio before a Senate hearing last week.
Rubio has asked our NATO allies to sell Ukraine some Patriots from their stockpile, but “none of these countries want to give up their Patriot systems, either," said the secretary.
“The U.S. needs to keep a certain amount for its own defense, in case of an attack from Iran or another adversary,” an anonymous diplomat told the Washington Post.
Raytheon, the manufacturer of the Patriot Missile, is still in the process of expanding its production lines to meet post-2022 demand. That includes Ukraine, which is willing to purchase Patriots after Joe Biden gave Kyiv the Patriot batteries as part of the initial aid package following Moscow's invasion.
“They think like business people. If I give you something, you have to give me something in return,” said a senior Ukrainian official quoted by the Post. “We have to adapt to this.”
Meanwhile, North Korea is proving to be an invaluable ally to Russia, supplying the Kremlin with about 250 of its ballistic missiles. Germany has announced that it will provide Ukraine with some of its older PAC-2 Patriots instead of the upgraded PAC-3 version, which does Kyiv little good, as the PAC-2s are far less effective against ICBMs.
Ukraine needs those Patriots to fight off Russia's continued targeting of their infrastructure.
Already in 2025, dozens of civilians have been killed in Russian ballistic missile attacks. On Palm Sunday in mid-April, 35 civilians were killed and 113 injured in a strike on the northeastern city of Sumy. That attack came a little over a week after 20 people, including nine children, were killed and 75 injured when a ballistic missile hit a playground in the southern city of Kryvyi Rih. Authorities say both attacks involved Russian Iskander missiles.
The intelligence official said that because of the speed and size of ballistic warheads, having enough Patriots is a question of “human life.” Some in the U.S. administration understand, the official said, but some do not, that “each Iskander can kill hundreds of people.”
For other countries, donating Patriot missiles or systems to Ukraine is a big ask, the official added, because they are expensive and an important part of each country’s national security apparatus.
Vladimir Putin is not ready to stop fighting. With peace talks stalled, might Trump consider selling the Patriots to Ukraine as a signal to Putin that the U.S. isn't going to allow Russia to have a walkover victory?
Trump has never said he would refuse aid to Ukraine. He has slowed the delivery of aid, hoping to entice both sides to sit down. But Volodymyr Zelensky refuses to back off his demand that all Ukrainian territory captured by Russia, including Crimea, be returned before he will even discuss peace.
Under those conditions, Putin sees no reason to stop the war, given his slow-motion success in the East and continued ruination of Ukrainian infrastructure.
That's why the Patriots are so vital to Ukraine's defense.
As Ukraine runs out of interceptor missiles for its Patriot systems, Russian bombardments will become more deadly, military analysts have warned.
Meanwhile, Russia continues to upgrade its arsenal. Russian Iskander-M ballistic missiles now deploy radar decoys and follow quasi-ballistic trajectories, making them harder to intercept, according to Ukrainian officials and military analysts.
“For the Patriot system, which is designed to intercept ballistic missiles by calculating the interception point, it becomes much harder to predict that point,” said Yurii Ihnat, the Air Force’s chief spokesman.
“I don’t know what the hell happened to Putin,” Trump wrote on Sunday. “I’ve known him a long time. Always gotten along with him. But he’s sending rockets into cities and killing people, and I don’t like it at all.”
For Trump, selling Kyiv the means to defend civilians might help overcome his reluctance to further involve the U.S. in the war.
