‘We Only Have Six Left’ – Germany Opts Out of Patriot Package to Kyiv

On a day when US President Donald Trump promised more American-made Patriot air defense missiles for Ukraine, Germany recanted on promises to do the same, saying they “don’t have enough.”

Germany can no longer send Patriot air defense systems to Ukraine due to a shortage of available units, Berlin’s defense minister, Boris Pistorius, told the Financial Times over the weekend.

He said that Germany originally had 12 Patriot batteries, three of which have already been sent to Kyiv. Two others have been leased to Poland, and one or more is undergoing maintenance.

“We only have six left in Germany. That’s really too few, especially considering the NATO capability goals we have to meet. We definitely can’t give any more away,” Pistorius said.

As Trump had said earlier about the United States’ stockpiles, he had to be first concerned with his own country’s air defenses.

The US president reversed course on Sunday, however, announcing that an undisclosed number of the coveted, first-in-class missiles are on their way to Kyiv, after all.

Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, just outside the nation’s capital, “We’re not paying anything for them. But we will get [Ukraine] Patriots, which they desperately need.”

The German defense minister, however, said he would be revisiting previous conversations with the US Department of Defense to purchase two more Patriot systems, which could then be sent along to Ukraine.

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Ukraine Signs Deal With Germany for 600 Air Defense Missiles

Zelensky said Ukraine has signed a major contract with Germany for 600 interceptor missiles, but warns that “delivery is a fairly lengthy process.”

Germany’s much-requested Taurus missiles, however, remain off-limits to Kyiv, he said, as Berlin still fears that their long-range capabilities (several hundred miles) pose too much political risk, should Ukraine’s Armed Forces decide to use them on unapproved targets well within Russian territory.

Instead, Berlin said it will finance the production of hundreds of similar systems capable of striking deep behind Russian lines, German media outlet ZDF reported over the weekend.

Those weapons are expected to arrive in Ukraine by the end of July.