Zelensky Makes Air Defence the Summit’s Test
President Zelensky said decisions on air defence should be “one of the key outcomes” of the Ankara summit, pressing for additional Patriot systems, a licence to manufacture Patriot interceptors in Ukraine, and what he called a domestic anti-ballistic-missile capability — after a week in which Russian strikes on Kyiv killed at least 15 people and Ukraine answered with its deepest strike of the war on a Siberian refinery.
The arithmetic behind the demand is stark and public — as one leading defence analyst put it, there is a direct correlation between the number of interceptors supplied to Ukraine and the damage Russia can inflict with ballistic missiles, and this week’s attacks demonstrated the gap: everything slow intercepted, everything ballistic through. A manufacturing licence would change the dependency permanently, which is exactly why it is a harder ask than another battery. Zelensky meets Trump tomorrow with the week’s casualty lists as his brief. Watch whether the summit produces interceptor numbers, a licence pathway, or communiqué language — in descending order of worth to Kyiv.