The US is holding up the transfer of Patriot missiles to Ukraine: Europe has them, but isn't allowed to send them

The missiles exist. They are sitting in European warehouses, and the allies are ready to give them to Ukraine. They aren't arriving because one signature is missing - and it isn't awaited in Brussels, but in Washington.

Donald Trump's administration is delaying approval for the transfer of American Patriot interceptor missiles from European allies' stocks to Ukraine, according to US and Ukrainian officials familiar with the talks. US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has not formally rejected the requests, but he hasn't given the necessary consent either. Because the weapons are American, European states can't simply pass them on to Kyiv without a green light from Washington.

And time is running out. According to a Ukrainian official, on 7 October the country had only ten Patriot interceptors. They were used up in the attacks that followed, leaving only a few. Another source familiar with the state of air defences says stocks are exhausted. The sources spoke anonymously because of the sensitivity of military data.

Why Patriot specifically? It's the system Ukraine uses to intercept Russian ballistic missiles - the ones that fly so fast and for so short a time that very little time is left to react. Without it, cities and energy infrastructure are an easier target, although final protection also depends on the other systems and ammunition Kyiv has. On 19 October alone, Kyiv was hit by a new Russian missile attack.

American stocks are being spent elsewhere

The main reason for the delay is the pressure on US munitions stocks, further strained by the war with Iran. In the first month of the conflict in the Middle East, the US military used more than 1,000 Patriot and THAAD missiles to protect its forces from Iranian attacks. Production can't keep up with consumption: making a single Patriot missile can take up to 36 months. A shortfall like that isn't closed with one order.

It's worth being precise: this is not an official, complete halt to US military aid for Ukraine. The problem is the specific approvals for transferring Patriot missiles from partner countries' stocks. But for a country counting its last interceptors, the difference between "no" and "not yet" is almost academic.

Zelensky, for his part, said US intelligence failed to warn Kyiv about missile attacks on three occasions last week. Delays and limits in military support, he says, make defence even harder. Still, not every attack that gets through can automatically be attributed to that alone - the outcome also depends on the type of attack, the deployment of systems and the time available to react.

Europe now faces a question it won't be able to dodge for long: what is a defence you own worth if someone else decides when you may give it away? The Balkans remember the lesson that great powers hand out weapons according to their own priorities, not other people's needs. For Kyiv, bracing for new attacks on its energy infrastructure, every "later" is one more risk.