US President Donald Trump said he has no intention of providing Ukraine with additional missiles for its Patriot air-defense systems, rejecting a request from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during a briefing at the White House.
"We need the missiles ourselves," Trump said, commenting on Kyiv's request for interceptor deliveries. He also accused the administration of former President Joe Biden of draining American arsenals, claiming Biden sent Ukraine $300 billion worth of ammunition.
Trump stressed that the US armed forces are in "good shape." According to him, America has weapons stockpiles around the world, and "if they are needed, we will take them," though the weapons are not as modern "but just as effective."
The US president also commented on the intensification of Russian strikes on Ukraine. "We are separated by an ocean. But I am saddened to see young people dying," he said, adding that he is working to end the war.
Trump noted progress in settling the conflict without providing details. "I have settled eight wars. I thought this one might be one of the easiest, and it turned out to be the hardest. But progress has been made," he said.
The Financial Times reported earlier that Zelensky, at a meeting with Trump in late July, asked for a hundred interceptor missiles for Kyiv, but the US president rejected the request. He cited the use of ammunition to protect US facilities in the Middle East as one of the reasons.
Zelensky has previously said that deliveries of air-defense missiles from Western partners fell threefold in the first half of the year. He also asked for a license to produce Patriot interceptors in Ukraine, but Trump, who initially allowed for the possibility, later backed away from it.
After a Russian overnight strike on Kyiv on August 1, Zelensky called on partners to help with air-defense missiles. According to him, Russia launched 35 missiles that night, 27 of them ballistic, and Ukrainian air defenses managed to shoot down only one.