US allies have agreed to pick up the bill for arming Ukraine from now on, US President Donald Trump said in an interview with NBC News on July 11.

"We’re sending weapons to Nato, and Nato is paying for those weapons, 100%. So, what we’re doing is the weapons that are going out are going to Nato, and then Nato is going to be giving those weapons [to Ukraine], and Nato is paying for those weapons," he said in an interview with NBC News.

He added that the deal was reached at a Nato summit last month.

Trump’s announcement effectively takes the US out of the war in Ukraine and drops the responsibility for supplying Kyiv into Europe’s lap. Last week, the Pentagon announced that it was halting all new weapons deliveries, a decision that Trump reversed this week but so far he has committed a mere 10 Patriot interceptor rockets to Ukraine, not enough to protect a single Ukrainian city from even one day of Russian missile attacks. And Russia has launched an intensifying missile war on Ukraine since the devastating missile barrage began in May, a day after a phone call between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, where the US president said “no progress” had been made on ending the conflict.

In recent days, Trump has expressed frustration with Putin over the lack of progress towards ending the war and made some of his most pro-Ukraine and anti-Russia comments, since taking office in January.

Nevertheless, Trump has flip-flopped on restarting weapons deliveries to Ukraine. This week he said that deliveries would resume, but details on when and how many missiles will be sent remain vague.

So far, the only concrete report by Axios says Trump has ordered the delivery of a mere ten Patriot interceptor missiles, not batteries, to Ukraine and he is pressuring Germany to sell one of its Patriot batteries to Ukraine.

Typically, it takes two Patriot rockets to bring down one Russian missile. Zelenskiy said that on July 9, Russia fired a total of 18 missiles at Ukraine. Ten interceptor rockets are enough to bring down only a third of the missiles Russia is firing on a single day of the conflict over just one city.

For Kyiv, the bottom line has become that its wealthiest and most powerful military and economic sponsor is pulling out of the conflict and leading Kyiv to go it alone. Despite Europe’s promises of money and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s ReArm speech to ramp up European defence production, currently only the US can provide key high-tech weaponry such as Patriots and HIMARS rocket artillery.

What Trump decides to do and how the weapons purchase deals by the EU are implemented will be crucial to Ukraine’s war effort. Any lengthy delays will leave Ukraine’s skies open just as a major Russian summer offensive gets under way.

“It was a temporary pause for review, not a policy decision to stop aid to Ukraine. The Pentagon evaluates stockpiles, especially after events like in the Middle East. Aid continues, but some shipments were briefly delayed during the review — not cancelled,” said Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaking at an ASEAN summit in Malaysia on July 10.

“Most US military aid to Ukraine continues on schedule. The real issue is limited production in the West. Ukraine needs more Patriot batteries, but EU countries with unused systems aren’t sharing. If Ukraine’s a priority, that must change,” said Rubio.

Currently, Ukraine is receiving arms from commitments made under the outgoing Biden administration, but these allocations are expected to run out in the summer. Trump has made no new commitments since taking over.

EU picking up the bill

Zelenskiy identified Germany and Norway as taking the lead on picking up the US arms bill, mentioning specifically they will buy three Patriot air defence systems for Ukraine from a US manufacturer, up for the previously mooted two European-supplied systems mentioned by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz earlier this month.

"We are having a concrete dialogue with the US. Germany is ready – we have an agreement that they will buy two systems for Ukraine. As for Norway, I have a bilateral agreement – they will pay for one system," Zelenskiy said speaking at the Ukraine Recovery Conference (URC2025) event in Rome on July 10.

Zelenskiy said that Ukraine needs a minimum of ten Patriot systems and his team is currently working to secure funding for the remaining ones. Previously Bankova has called for a total of 22 Patriot systems to fully protect all of Ukraine’s main cities from Russian missile attack.

What remains unclear is when the new systems will be delivered. US production capacity is limited and demand for Patriot interceptor ammunition is currently extremely high. Merz announced that the two batteries it is sending to Ukraine are actually a redirection of Patriots it ordered earlier that are due for delivery in early 2026. To replace them Germany has put in a new order for Patriots, but these won’t be delivered until 2028, according to reports.

Zelenskiy was unclear when the three new EU-sponsored Patriot systems will be available, but made it clear it was an order for new systems.

"Once the manufacturer provides details on possible delivery timelines, I believe other partners will join in as well,” Zelenskiy said.

Rubio said at a press conference after his meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov the same day that the US would try to persuade Nato allies to transfer Patriot air defence systems to Ukraine.

Europe to pick up the bill

Zelenskiy has said that during talks within the coalition of the willing held in the parallel Ukraine Recovery Conference (UKR2025) being held in Rome, the possibility of purchasing additional weapons for Ukraine was discussed.

“Four months have passed since Ukraine agreed to a full, unconditional ceasefire. In this time, Russia has intensified attacks on Ukraine's civilian population, killing more than 700 and injuring over 3,500 in the most intense air strikes of the invasion to date. The Leaders called on Russia to end attacks against civilians, and to commit to a full and unconditional ceasefire in order to negotiate a just and lasting settlement,” the coalition said in a joint statement.

The coalition reaffirmed the agreement to provide at least €40bn in military support to Ukraine in 2025 to bolster the Security and Defence Forces of Ukraine – matching the commitment made by the Nato Alliance in 2024.

Ukraine will allocate nearly $50bn to defence and security in 2025, amounting to 26% of the country's GDP, but it’s going to need $40bn of external funding this year, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said at the same event. Shmyhal said the Ukrainian government had submitted amendments to the state budget law at the end of June to increase defence spending by almost $10bn.

"We discussed with our partners the possibility of purchasing the necessary weapons packages in Europe and primarily in the US. We’re talking about air defence systems, ammunition, and so on,” Zelenskiy said. We have provided our partners with a list of what we need. We will move forward in this direction.”

Zelenskiy also presented Trump with a wish list during the Nato summit in the Hague earlier this month, which Trump said the Pentagon was studying.

Zelenskiy also reported that Germany is holding "intensive negotiations" with the US regarding the provision of Patriot air defence systems to Ukraine.

“It’s time to assess the interim results of our ‘special diplomatic operation’. There have now been six presidential phone calls, several rounds of talks between foreign ministers and national security aides, and sustained contact at other levels. The most obvious positive outcome is the restoration of dialogue between Russia and the United States – a process that had been severed under the Biden administration,” said Dmitry Trenin, a research professor at the Higher School of Economics and a lead research fellow at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations.

“On the military front, Trump will deliver the remaining aid packages approved under Biden, and perhaps supplement them with modest contributions of his own. But going forward, it will be Western Europe – especially Germany – that supplies Ukraine, often by buying US-made systems and re-exporting them,” Trenin added.

Lack of production

In the drone war, Kyiv is going much better. During the URC2025 Zelenskiy warned that Russia was getting ready to send 1,000 drones a day against Ukraine during the current campaign, but added that after Ukraine ramped up its own drone production by a million units a year in the last year, Kyiv was “ready” to counter the onslaught.

"Russia wants to launch 1,000 drones. But we will intercept them all. There are solutions – interceptor drones. If our partners take in everything I’ve shared and funding is allocated accordingly, we will be able to do it,” Zelenskiy said at URC2025, reports Ukrainska Pravda.

Zelenskyy stated several manufacturers have already confirmed that they possess effective technology capable of countering Shahed drones.

"We have found a solution – we as a country. There are four Ukrainian companies and one US-Ukrainian company that produce the necessary drones. What we need now is to scale up production,” he said.

While Ukraine has managed to keep pace with Russia’s investment into drone manufacturing, it remains hopelessly behind in missile production – a function of the 70-year-long Cold War nuclear arms race. Ukraine now produces a handful of missiles such as the sea-launched Neptune that was used to devastating effect to sink Russia's Black Sea Fleet flagship the Moskva in the first year of the war, but has little in its arsenal other than that.

According to recent reports, Russia produced 1,200 missiles last year, enough to fire three a day, after Putin put the whole Russian economy on a war footing in the first year of the war. Neither Ukraine or Europe produce the crucial Patriot systems that are the only defence against Russia’s increasingly sophisticated and powerful missile arsenal. Patriots is made exclusively by Raytheon Technologies, now operating under RTX Corporation, which is headquartered in Arlington, Virginia in the US.

But even the US production of Patriots is limited. American promises have been outrunning American supply lines for all the munitions it has been supplying its allies. At the start of the war in 2022, the US sent one million artillery shells to Ukraine, but its annual production was only 100,000 a year, which has been increased since then, but not the levels needed by Ukraine. In late 2023, the US redirected tens of thousands of 155-millimeter artillery shells allocated for Ukraine to Israel. And in early June during the 12-day war, 20,000 anti-drone missiles (APKWS) were diverted to the Middle East to protect US troops from potential Iranian retaliation. Now the US has run down its stock of air defence ammo to only 25% of its strategic needs, according to The Guardian, after resupplying Israel following its recent conflict with Iran. US Secretary for Defence Pete Hegseth’s assessment that US stocks of weapons are running too low appears to be correct.

“The American military-industrial base is simply not producing fast enough, and the consequences for American policy — and American allies — are serious.,” says Michael Brendan Dougherty is a senior writer at National Review and the William F Buckley senior scholar at the Intercollegiate Studies Institute in an opinion piece in UnHerd.