{"id":37553,"date":"2026-09-05T04:46:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-05T04:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/37553\/"},"modified":"2026-09-05T04:46:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T04:46:09","slug":"ukraine-asks-eu-to-fund-first-patriot-missiles-buy-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/37553\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine asks EU to fund first Patriot missiles buy"},"content":{"rendered":"

KYIV, Ukraine \u2014 The European Union is reviewing Kyiv\u2019s request to spend billions of euros on PAC-3 interceptor missiles for its Patriot batteries \u2014 the first time Ukraine has formally asked to tap a \u20ac90 billion support loan<\/a> approved earlier this year to buy the U.S.-made systems, European officials announced this week.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will keep supporting Ukraine, including with European air defence and PAC-3 Patriot systems,\u201d European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wrote on X<\/a> on Sept. 2, confirming the request alongside NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. \u201cWe will work closer than ever with NATO. And deter anyone who attacks our freedom and security.\u201d<\/p>\n

The statement comes a day after Ukraine\u2019s defense minister, Yevhenii Khmara, pressed allies for more aid. Russia is continuing a second week of launching near-nonstop aerial strikes on Kyiv, Odesa and other cities as Ukraine faces a dire antiballistics interceptor shortage<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cUkraine calls on partners to allocate national budget funds for the procurement of Ukrainian drones, expedite the provision of the EU loan, and resume discussions on the use of frozen Russian assets,\u201d Khmara said in a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He said Ukraine currently faces a $27 billion defense budget deficit, but emphasized that supporting Kyiv is a \u201cwin-win\u201d for Europe.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery euro invested in Ukraine\u2019s defence is an investment in European security,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The \u20ac90 billion loan Kyiv hopes to tap into \u2014 finalized by the Council of the EU<\/a> in April after months of delay \u2014 sets aside roughly \u20ac60 billion for defense procurement and \u20ac30 billion for budget support.<\/p>\n

But the loan\u2019s rules were written to prioritize European and Ukrainian-made weapons, capping non-EU\/Ukrainian content at 35% of a given purchase\u2019s value. <\/p>\n

Because PAC-3s are built in the U.S., Kyiv\u2019s request needs to receive a formal exemption to access the funds.<\/p>\n

Ukraine already secured a similar carve-out in April for Chinese-made drone components, a precedent officials are pointing to as EU member states weigh the latest request.<\/p>\n

Von der Leyen said in her Sept. 2 statement<\/a> that the exemption review \u201cis moving in the right direction,\u201d and that EU representatives were due to decide on the exemption on Monday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"KYIV, Ukraine \u2014 The European Union is reviewing Kyiv\u2019s request to spend billions of euros on PAC-3 interceptor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37554,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[868,660,1644,656,78,30,31,6014,158,6304,869,1645,66,8245,6303,25,26,1902],"class_list":["post-37553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-brussels","tag-circulated-defense-news","tag-circulated-military-times","tag-dn-dnr","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-european-union","tag-interceptor-missiles","tag-kyiv","tag-lockheed-martin","tag-mark-rutte","tag-military-times","tag-nato","tag-pac-3","tag-patriot","tag-russia","tag-ukraine","tag-ursula-von-der-leyen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37553\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}