Trump says he will discuss Patriot missile production with Zelenskiy
The two leaders meet Tuesday as talks over ending the war in Ukraine continue into a new week
Published
President Trump says he will raise Patriot missile production when he meets Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday. The meeting extends a diplomatic push between the two leaders that has continued for weeks.
The Patriot system, built by RTX as lead system architect and radar provider, sits at the center of allied air defense supply lines. RTX's total backlog stood at $268 billion at the end of 2025, up from $218 billion a year earlier, according to the company's 10-K filing, and had grown to a record $289 billion by the second quarter of 2026, according to Insider Monkey.
Demand for the system runs well beyond Ukraine. Saudi Arabia, Germany, Poland and more than a dozen other countries together account for a Patriot backlog of over 4,300 rounds, or roughly seven years of output at 2025 production rates, according to the Foreign Policy Research Institute. RTX has moved to expand capacity to meet it: in June it announced a $100 million investment in its Portsmouth, Rhode Island plant to increase output of Patriot GEM-T subcomponents, according to Yahoo Finance, and in April it signed a $3.7 billion contract to supply GEM-T interceptors for Ukraine as part of an expansion that includes a new facility in Schrobenhausen, Germany, according to an RTX news release.
Against that backdrop, a Patriot discussion between Trump and Zelenskyy looks like tactical follow-through on goals Trump has already stated: reaching a settlement in Ukraine before winter while expanding US weapons production to support it. It does not point to a change in direction, and it leaves the near-term shape of the negotiations largely where it was.