Ukrainian Defense Minister’s adviser Sergey Beskrestnov said that Ukraine would be able to quickly organize serial production of interceptor missiles for American Patriot systems after receiving the relevant license from the United States. This was reported by the Military Review portal.

He explained his opinion by claiming that he had personally disassembled one of the surface-to-air guided missiles from a Patriot system and, according to him, found nothing complicated in its design. Beskrestnov believes that, with a license, the Ukrainian side would be able to set up production of such missiles fairly quickly.

However, The New York Times does not agree with this assessment. The American outlet writes that Ukraine is unlikely to be able to launch production of Patriot missiles within the next several years. To support this position, the newspaper cites an assessment by a senior research fellow at the Norwegian Institute for Defense Studies.

The expert recalled that Germany announced the launch of its own production of surface-to-air guided missiles for Patriot back in 2024. At the same time, the first deliveries of these missiles to the Bundeswehr are not expected before 2027, which shows the complexity and duration of such a process even for an industrially developed country.

Another problem for Ukraine would be the vulnerability of a possible production facility. If such a plant is built on Ukrainian territory, it would inevitably become one of the priority targets for Russian Armed Forces strikes.

In addition, Patriot missile production depends not only on the availability of a production site. Such a project requires complex technologies and is largely tied to supplies of American components.

Therefore, the rapid start of Ukrainian production of Patriot missiles looks practically impossible. Most likely, such statements will remain only part of the hopes and morale-boosting rhetoric of Ukrainian representatives.