After a meeting of EU defence ministers, foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said procurement plans worth €28.3 billion had been approved under the EU loan supporting Ukraine. Some of the funding is intended for Patriot missiles expected to come from future US production.
Kallas said waiting for newly produced missiles is a problem because manufacturing takes time while Kyiv needs Patriots now. One option under discussion is for EU member states and partners to transfer missiles from their current stockpiles to Ukraine and later receive replacements purchased with the EU loan.
No country had committed to transfer missiles through that arrangement by the time of Kallas’s remarks, and she said there had been no new pledges that day. She added that many states supported bringing forward part of a separate €90 billion EU loan for Ukraine that is currently earmarked for 2027.
Hours earlier, Kallas warned that intelligence indicated Russia was planning further acts of sabotage in Europe. The report did not provide details of the alleged plans. Discussions on the Patriot proposal are continuing; approval of procurement plans does not itself mean that governments have agreed to release missiles from their existing stocks.