The United States is delaying the delivery of Patriot interceptor missiles already paid for under a NATO-coordinated weapons purchasing initiative, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview with Bloomberg on Oct. 18.
Washington has approved only some of the missiles purchased through the Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List (PURL) initiative, which allows NATO allies to finance the purchase of U.S.-made weapons for Ukraine, Zelensky said, according to Bloomberg.
"The American side approved the delivery of only some of them, but not the rest. And this is not a technical issue," Zelensky said.
The Ukrainian president said the U.S. is currently supplying just 12 Patriot interceptor missiles per month, approximately one-quarter of the number provided under former President Joe Biden's administration.
Unlike the military aid provided under Biden, Ukraine must now purchase the missiles, Zelensky said.
The accusations come as Ukraine faces renewed Russian ballistic missile attacks and increasingly severe shortages of the interceptors needed to defend against them.
Ukraine's Patriot interceptor stocks had again reached critically low levels by mid-October, with a Ukrainian official telling the Washington Post that only a handful remained. CNN separately reported that Kyiv's available missiles had been exhausted.
Patriot systems are among Ukraine's most important defenses against Russian ballistic missiles, which are particularly difficult to intercept using other systems.
Russia launched ballistic missile attacks against Kyiv on consecutive nights, Oct. 18 and 19, killing at least one person in the first attack and damaging residential buildings and infrastructure.
Zelensky also told Bloomberg that he had proposed suspending Ukrainian strikes on Russian diesel infrastructure in exchange for additional Patriot missiles.
"My latest model was: We don't target Russian diesel, you give us missiles for Patriot systems to protect our facilities. But they just want us to stop attacking diesel," Zelensky said.
The proposal comes at a time of growing tensions between Kyiv and Washington over U.S. President Donald Trump's demands that Ukraine halt its strikes on Russian oil refineries.
The Trump administration has threatened to restrict military and intelligence support unless Ukraine ends the campaign, even as Russia continues targeting Ukrainian energy infrastructure.
Trump previously appeared to support expanding Ukraine's access to Patriot missiles. On July 8, he told Zelensky that Ukraine could produce the missiles domestically.
But Trump walked back that promise on July 31, saying Washington had not agreed to grant the licenses and describing the technology as difficult to share.
In September, Zelensky said Trump had made a final decision to grant Ukraine licenses to manufacture Patriot missiles, although domestic production has yet to begin.
Zelensky has appealed to Washington repeatedly, making the case for additional Patriot missiles as Russia intensifies strikes against Ukrainian cities and critical infrastructure.
The U.S. government has not publicly confirmed Zelensky's latest figures or explained the reported delays in approving deliveries.