U.S. President Donald Trump has announced that shipments of new air defense missiles for Ukraine’s Patriot systems, which he promised on Sunday, are already underway.
“They’re already being shipped. They’re coming in from Germany and then replaced by Germany, and in all cases, the United States gets paid back in full,” Trump told reporters at Andrews Air Force Base on Tuesday.
A day earlier, Trump said that Patriot missiles and batteries would arrive in Ukraine “very soon, within days.” He mentioned “17 Patriots ready to be shipped,” though did not explain exactly what this number referred to.
Afterward, Ukrainian deputy intelligence chief Vadym Skibitsky said he wasn’t sure how many systems Trump was talking about. “We don’t know for certain. Seventeen is a huge number if we’re talking about batteries. If he meant launchers, that’s possible,” he said.
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