Ukraine has taken delivery of a consignment of “some” Patriot interceptor missiles but still does not have enough to defend itself, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in Kyiv on August 25.

"To be honest, some Patriot missiles have also arrived. I cannot say how many, but some. We need more," he said. Last month, Zelenskiy asked US President Donald Trump for 300 interceptors to get through the winter, but Trump refused saying: “We need them ourselves.”

Zelenskiy was speaking at a press conference with Estonian President Alar Karis, Interfax-Ukraine reported. The deliveries followed recent meetings in the NB8 and Coalition of the Willing formats and included AIM missiles as well. He did not say which type of Patriot round had arrived.

Patriot batteries fire three rounds - PAC-2, PAC-3 CRI and PAC-3 MSE - and only the two PAC-3 variants can bring down ballistic and hypersonic weapons, according to Ukraine's defence ministry. PAC-2 is built for aircraft and cruise missiles. Whether this delivery helps against the ballistic salvoes landing on Kyiv therefore turns on a detail the president declined to give.

It also arrives the day after European governments concluded they cannot fix the problem themselves. Britain's prime minister Andy Burnham said on August 24 he would go to New York in September to press Donald Trump to release American interceptor stocks, after Seoul refused a request for PAC-3 rounds and Berlin admitted it was short of money. Kyiv has spent the summer asking every other capital first and being turned down, because the interceptors that stop ballistic missiles are made in the United States and no amount of European money conjures more of them.

The monthly supply Zelenskiy said Washington had committed to therefore appears to be running at some rate, which is more than could be said a fortnight ago. An unquantified part-delivery does not touch the underlying shortage.

Ukraine has flown AIM rounds for several years, launching AIM-9 Sidewinder, AIM-120 AMRAAM and AIM-7 Sparrow missiles from F-16s and from ground-based NASAMS launchers against aircraft and cruise missiles. Those are not scarce in the way the Patriot rounds are.

Zelenskiy added that Ukraine had confirmation that several Crotale air defence systems and missiles for them would be delivered. Crotale NG is a French short-range surface-to-air system designed against low and very low altitude targets; France has previously supplied Ukraine with two of them.

Russia is producing missiles up to 40% above target, by Ukrainian intelligence's reckoning, and hit Kyiv with 24 ballistic missiles in a single night in early August. Against that, "some" is a word doing a lot of work.