Trump’s Decision on Patriot Missiles Gives Ukraine Cautious Optimism

President Trump’s change of heart on Monday, announcing that the United States would help arm Ukraine with additional Patriot missile systems, a move that would aid that country’s beleaguered air defense forces, was greeted with only cautious optimism by military analysts and officers in Kyiv because of previous seesaws in U.S. policy.

American fatigue with the war and the fickleness of the Trump administration remain a concern for Ukraine’s leaders. The country’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, is seeking to reshape his government, and, hours before Mr. Trump’s announcement, pointed to bolstering domestic weapons production as a priority for a new prime minister.

“Because Trump is in the mood today, he may not be tomorrow,” Anatoly Khrapchynsky, a Ukrainian aviation expert and former air force officer, said in an interview. “Production must be localized in Ukraine, underground.”

Ukraine’s domestic industry now produces about 40 percent of the weaponry used on the battlefield and in air defense systems, but it must still rely on American and European weaponry in the foreseeable future.

In a nightly video address to Ukrainians, Mr. Zelensky thanked the United States as well as the European nations that committed to financing the Patriot transfers to Ukraine.

“I am grateful to our team, I am grateful to the United States, and I am grateful to Germany and Norway for preparing a new decision on Patriots,” Mr. Zelensky said. Working together, he added, “we can achieve a great deal for the sake of security.”

Bulking up on Patriots would have ripple effects beyond the guarding specific sites. Using them to protecting airfields, for example, would allow Ukraine greater freedom to put its American F-16 and French Mirage fighter jets to use near the front line and in an air defense role.

The signal of continuing support could also shift Russia’s calculous on the Trump administration-brokered cease-fire talks that Ukrainians had written off as a failure before Monday’s announcement.

“Today’s announcement is President Trump’s strongest move toward peace in Ukraine yet,” Mykola Murskyj, director of advocacy at the Razom center in Kyiv, a think tank, said in a statement. “It will save countless Ukrainian lives.”

Russia has been advancing in bloody but slow-moving offensives in eastern Ukraine, and pounding cities and other targets throughout the country. Those involve missiles, against which Patriots can effective, but also drones, fired by the hundreds in volleys once or twice a week.

In a recent, typical large-scale aerial barrage on July 4, Russia fired 539 exploding drones and decoys and 11 missiles. Ukraine jammed or shot down 475 drones but only two missiles.