Here is what is known about the growing military ties:

THE LATEST REPORTS

A North Korean missile unit has begun deploying to western Russia and could be equipped with up to 120 ballistic missiles and six launchers for attacks on Ukraine, an official at Ukraine’s GUR military intelligence agency said.

The unit comprises about 90 North Korean personnel and is expected to be based in Russia’s Voronezh region, the official said. The United States is aware of the North Korean deployment, a source familiar with the issue told Reuters.

Forty North Korean missiles have already been supplied, at least two of which were launched at Ukraine last week during a deadly strike, the Ukrainian official said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in July that Russia wanted to bring in 30,000 North Korean troops and was preparing facilities in Voronezh to receive them.

Reuters could not independently verify that statement.

HOW MANY NORTH KOREAN TROOPS WERE SENT TO RUSSIA IN 2024?

North Korea sent around 14,000 to 15,000 soldiers to Russia’s Kursk region, according to Ukrainian and South Korean estimates, helping Moscow’s forces repel a surprise Ukrainian ground incursion.

Russia and North Korea confirmed in April 2025 that North Korean troops had fought Ukrainian forces in Kursk.

Russia’s top military commander praised their role after Moscow said it had retaken Kursk territory, while Pyongyang said the deployment was ordered by leader Kim Jong Un.

The Ukrainian official said this month that around 9,500 North Korean troops remained in Kursk, but were not directly involved in operations against Ukraine.

WHAT OTHER PERSONNEL HAS NORTH KOREA SAID IT WILL PROVIDE?

In June 2025, Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu said North Korea would send 1,000 sappers and 5,000 military construction workers to Kursk to clear mines and help rebuild infrastructure damaged in the fighting.

That same month, South Korean lawmakers, citing a briefing by the National Intelligence Service, said that North Korea appeared to have begun recruiting personnel for an additional deployment to Russia, while continuing to supply Russia with artillery ammunition and missiles in exchange for economic cooperation and technical assistance.

It remains unclear how many engineers, deminers or additional troops have arrived in Russia, or whether they have been used in combat roles.

WHAT WEAPONS HAS NORTH KOREA PROVIDED?

North Korea has supplied Russia with millions of artillery and mortar rounds, ballistic missiles, long-range artillery and multiple-launch rocket systems, according to Ukrainian and independent assessments.

A Reuters analysis with the British-based Open Source Centre found four Russian-flagged cargo ships made 64 voyages to North Korea’s Rajin port between September 2023 and March 2025, transporting nearly 16,000 containers of ammunition to Russian ports.

Ukrainian officials said North Korea was supplying about half of the munitions Russia needed on the front lines.

Ukraine’s military intelligence agency said that North Korea had delivered 4 million artillery shells since mid-2023, excluding mortar rounds. It said North Korea had supplied 148 KN-23 and KN-24 ballistic missiles by the start of 2025.

WHY IS NORTH KOREA HELPING RUSSIA?

Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim signed a comprehensive strategic partnership treaty during Putin’s June 2024 visit to Pyongyang. The pact includes a mutual assistance provision if either country faces external aggression.

North Korea has cast its deployment as assistance to a treaty partner. Kim said in May 2025 that participation in the war was justified as an exercise of North Korea’s sovereign rights in defense of a “brother nation.”

Analysts say Pyongyang stands to gain hard currency, oil and other economic support, as well as access to Russian military technology and battlefield experience for its forces and weapons.

North Korean soldiers have gained combat exposure to drones, electronic warfare, artillery coordination and modern battlefield tactics, while its missile and ammunition makers have been able to assess their equipment in wartime conditions.

THE INTERNATIONAL REACTION

The United States and its allies have said the troop deployments and arms transfers violate U.N. Security Council resolutions on North Korea.

Pyongyang has been subject to U.N. sanctions since 2006 over its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs. The sanctions prohibit countries from hosting North Korean trainers, advisers or other officials for military, paramilitary or police training.

Washington imposed additional sanctions in December 2024 on North Korean and Russian entities connected to Pyongyang’s military and financial support for Moscow. South Korea also blacklisted individuals and entities linked to illicit military cooperation between the two countries.

NATO has said Russia’s growing military and economic ties with North Korea, China and Iran pose a threat beyond Europe, extending to the Indo-Pacific and North America.

Rheinmetall now expects sales in the range of €13.7 billion to €14.2 billion ($15.8 billion to $16.4 billion), down from €14.0 billion to €14.5 billion previously, based on a €300 million hit to its naval division.

It also cut its order book guidance to more than €100 billion, from roughly €135 billion previously, and lowered its capital expenditure target to 8%-9% of sales from 16%.

The company left its free cash flow conversion ratio and margin targets unchanged and said it remained on track for record growth.

JPMorgan analysts said they had expected the canceled frigate program to have made more of an impact beyond 2026 and said the downgrades could signal slower growth in 2027-28.

Rheinmetall had reported a nearly 70% jump in second-quarter sales to about €3.3 billion, with all business segments contributing to the rise, in an unscheduled release last month.

Its shares fell as much as 4% in early trading before paring losses to trade 1.2% down by 0745 GMT.

DENTED AMBITIONS

Rheinmetall has seen its fortunes soar with Europe’s renewed interest in building up its defenses after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, with Europe’s largest ammunition maker targeting annual sales of up to €50 billion by 2030.

The company completed the acquisition in March of the warship division of German shipbuilder Luerssen as part of its ambitions to become a bigger player in the naval sector.

It has also been considering acquiring German Naval Yards Kiel and promised to reach a final decision within weeks after a rival bidder withdrew from the process last month.

The German government’s decision in June to scrap a delayed frigate program for which Rheinmetall had looked likely to secure the contract tempered the company’s upward momentum.

“In the naval business, too, we are looking to the future and are working hard to fulfil our current maritime orders as a reliable partner with a high level of expertise, and to secure new ones on the international stage as well,” said Chief Executive Armin Papperger on Thursday.

Since the start of the year, at least six defense-automotive tie-ups have been announced, as President Emmanuel Macron’s government seeks to combine the scale, automation and cost discipline of France’s car sector with one of the fastest-growing segments of military technology.

Ukraine and Russia’s use of drones has reshaped warfare, and that has prompted France and its European allies to prioritise drone production, as pressure from Washington on Europe to boost its military capabilities has added urgency.

The projects indicate France is building an industrial base capable of producing tens of thousands of drones a year — a scale difficult for defense startups to achieve alone, albeit one still dwarfed by Ukrainian and Russian efforts.

FRANCE AIMS FOR SCALABLE DRONE PRODUCTION

“Why now? Because the need is now, drones are now,” Christophe Périllat, chief executive of auto parts supplier Valeo, told reporters at the end of July. “And why in France? Because we’re being asked to guarantee our sovereignty.”

French defense officials do not anticipate a near-term need to deploy a large number of drones in the skies above France, but say it must be prepared for conflict.

The goal is to give France the ability to produce drones quickly and ramp up output should a crisis arise, they say. A July report by the French Senate’s defense committee described France’s stock of just a few thousand drones as “insufficient to achieve a critical mass.”

Valeo has said it will manufacture electric drone motors in France for defense technology firm Harmattan AI. Meanwhile, Forvia unveiled a partnership last week with a European defense company specialising in AI-powered counter-drone systems and is weighing plans to build capacity in France to manufacture 1,000 interceptor drones each month.

Renault, already working with Turgis & Gaillard to develop a long-range drone, partnered with Thales in June to industrialise production of the Toutatis kamikaze drone, targeting up to 1,000 units per month from 2027.

French drone maker Delair teamed up with German automotive supplier Schaeffler the same month to establish a French production line capable of producing around 100 drones per day by November.

SIMPLIFYING DRONE PRODUCTION FOR SCALE

If the plans announced by Renault, Schaeffler and Forvia are realized, combined output could reach 60,000 units per year. In a conflict, many more would be needed.

Drones have been used in warfare for decades, but the war in Ukraine has seen an explosion in scale.

Drones now dictate the flow of the battlefield, notching up the vast majority of kills. The front line has turned into a “kill zone,” with soldiers hiding underground from the constant aerial threat.

After Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, Ukraine quickly accelerated its use of drones for reconnaissance, battlefield combat and long-range strikes. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in July that it will produce 10 million in 2026.

Ukraine now has hundreds of drone makers, big and small. Some even produce more than Ukraine’s military can buy, and the government has cautiously moved towards allowing them to export some excess production.

Patrick Pailloux, head of France’s defense procurement agency, said he was working in particular with auto subcontractors to design drones that France will be able to produce in large quantities.

“It’s not the same: producing a drone in a defense start-up and making something that can be reproduced in very large volumes using production-line robots,” he said.

Renault CEO François Provost said in June the Toutatis kamikaze drone was being redesigned with fewer components and from injection-moulded plastic, enabling cheaper, higher-volume production than the current 3D-printed model.

ENOUGH DRONES TO TRAIN ON, BUT NOT MILLIONS

Defense officials say the challenge is scaling up production capacity while not building stockpiles that could soon become obsolete.

Patrice Caine, CEO of French defense technology group Thales, said this summer that drones were “objects that evolve quickly” under the impetus of technological advances.

Pailloux said France needed “enough so that we can train, and (the production capacity) to be able to withstand a shock”.

Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu pledged a €150 million ($175 million) investment to develop a dedicated drone sector last December.

But Antoine Level, head of France’s drone industry association, said Germany was ahead of France in funding short-range drones, and that there were still “not enough orders to truly stimulate the industry.”

Ukraine had urgently sought partners to develop a weapon capable of stopping Russia’s ballistic missiles. The pan-European project was launched officially in Paris last month by 10 governments and 12 defense firms – including Eurosam, Leonardo, Thales and SAAB.

Kyiv currently relies on the U.S.-made Patriot system to down ballistic missiles that fly at several times the speed of sound, but global shortages of its interceptor missiles, exacerbated by the war in Iran, have left Ukraine exposed.

“Pretty much everything is agreed,” CEO Iryna Terekh told Reuters, saying 13 industrial partners had already joined. Fire Point aims to achieve its first successful interception by mid-2027, she added.

Ukraine’s Fire Point builds pan European Freyja missile

The Ukrainian company is providing the FP7.X – a faster version of its FP7 ballistic missile – as the interceptor and is now integrating that with the guidance system, known as a seeker.

“Right now we are in the most intense and also in the most complicated stage of finally assembling everything together with surveillance radars, with tracking radars, with the seekers,” Terekh said.

Norway’s Kongsberg is working on the command center integrating the various systems. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Industry publications have reported that Germany’s Diehl Defence — which produces a seeker for its own IRIS-T air defense system — will provide the guidance system.

A Diehl spokesperson confirmed the firm was in talks with Fire Point but declined to discuss details. Terekh declined to comment.

Fire Point aims to produce a ballistic interceptor for less than €1 million ($1.2 million) per missile, Terekh said — a quarter to a sixth of the cost of a Patriot.

“We’re trying to squeeze a program that usually takes 20 or 30 years into a matter of a couple of years,” Terekh said, adding that there had been at least five tests of the interceptor missile.

The project would use open-source architecture and allow different options to be swapped in and out — such as a Weibel radar for one made by Saab, according to Ukrainian officials.

The number of industrial partners could rise to around 20, increasing production capacity, Terekh said. She added Fire Point was in talks with Ukrainian state-owned missile makers, but declined to name them.

Terekh said the participating companies would finance research and development until a minimum viable product (MVP) was reached — which she said would mean the successful interception of a ballistic missile.

Attack missiles nearly ready for combat

“We expect the launcher to have from four to six missiles. So if from one batch there was an interception of a ballistic missile for MVP, this would be a wonderful result,” Terekh said.

A missile gets through only if all the interceptors in a launcher miss. Keeping the probability of six misses in a row below 5% — an industry standard — requires each interceptor to hit roughly 40% of the time, according to Fabian Hoffmann, missile expert at the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies.

If it could really be done for €1 million, it would be “pretty impressive,” and “very cheap,” Hoffmann said.

The FP7 missile has an attack variant that can be used to strike ground targets. This has undergone about 15 test launches and is now being certified by the Ukrainian Defence Ministry, which she expected to take two to four more weeks.

Fire Point aims for first combat use of this version in early autumn, and late autumn for the much larger FP9 ballistic missile, which it says will be able to reach Moscow.

Terekh said the FP7’s architecture was based on Soviet-era designs for the S300 and S400 interceptors, but that Fire Point’s missile now shared only 20% similarity with those weapons.

In a recent interview, Fire Point co-founder Denys Shtilierman said the Soviet plans had been procured as a favor by Timur Mindich, a former business associate of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy who faces charges of corruption and is now a fugitive in Israel.

Fire Point says it declined an offer from Mindich to buy a stake in the company.

Fire Point is pressing ahead with building its own engine for its FP5 cruise missile, known as the Flamingo, which has hit several prominent military targets in Russia this year.

It had been using second-hand jet engines — “digging through the cemetery of the engines … like in a thrift store,” Terekh said.

But these are getting harder and harder to find, so Fire Point is assembling the first 10 units of its own prototype.

“As soon as we’re happy with the results of tests of these test engines, there’ll definitely be many more Flamingos,” Terekh said.

Meanwhile, the Polish military is strengthening cooperation with Germany’s Bundeswehr under the East Shield project to boost the resilience of its eastern borders to attacks and hybrid warfare from Russia and Belarus, while negotiating with the United States, France and the United Kingdom to also involve their forces.

A spokesperson for the Polish Ministry of National Defence told Defense News that the military exercise, which is scheduled to be held this fall, is part of the group’s preparations for the post-war reality in Ukraine. Before the conflict ends, coalition nations want to reach a higher level of force coordination, and the drills are expected to contribute to their increased interoperability.

“The exercise planned on the territory of Poland is part of the preparatory activities of the Coalition of the Willing as part of future security guarantees for Ukraine. Its objectives include testing the command-and-control system, the organization of logistical support, and the deployment of troops, thereby confirming the force’s ability to operate once hostilities have ended,” the spokesperson said.

The decision to hold the forthcoming exercise in Poland reflects the country’s particular role as the logistical and infrastructure hub for the Multinational Force Ukraine (MNF-U), according to the Polish ministry representative.

“The core participants in the exercise on Polish territory will be France and the United Kingdom, acting as the framework nations of the Coalition of the Willing,” the spokesperson said.

The coalition is an informal group of nations led by London and Paris, established in 2025 to coordinate military and political support for Kyiv. While coordinating efforts with its French and British counterparts, the Polish ministry is also negotiating the participation of further allies in the fall drills.

“At the same time, military-to-military discussions are underway regarding the participation of other countries that are members of the Coalition of the Willing,” according to the spokesperson.

Under the country’s 10 billion zloty ($2.6 billion) East Shield initiative, the Polish military is advancing projects to bolster defensive infrastructure, including fortifications and natural terrain obstacles along the roughly 800 km (497 miles) of border with Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave and Belarus.

In a statement, the Polish military said that rather than a single continuous line of trenches, bunkers and reinforced concrete anti-tank obstacles, the East Shield is a diversified defensive infrastructure system that incorporates the lessons learned from the war in Ukraine, including the rapid increase in the use of drones and other unmanned systems.

“Depending on operational requirements, the project will also include the construction of logistics hubs, material storage facilities, fortification elements and shelters, as well as drone detection and tracking systems using radar, thermal imaging and acoustic sensors,” the statement said. “These capabilities will help effectively counter unmanned aerial systems, which, as the war in Ukraine has demonstrated, are being used with increasing frequency.”

Poland is seeking to make East Shield a priority project for NATO, and, as part of its discussions with allies, the nation’s military has established cooperation with Germany’s Bundeswehr.

In July 2026, the Polish Army said that a German military engineering unit had been deployed to Poland on a rotational basis to participate in developing the infrastructure.

“At the invitation of the Polish side, German soldiers are supporting the Polish Armed Forces in expanding defensive infrastructure on NATO’s north-eastern flank,” said Colonel Marek Pietrzak, a spokesperson for the General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces. “The involvement of the German contingent is a practical demonstration of Allied solidarity and the result of the steadily expanding military cooperation between Poland and Germany. The initiative forms part of NATO’s broader efforts to strengthen deterrence and defense capabilities on the Alliance’s eastern flank.”

Meanwhile, Polish defense officials say they are in talks with Baltic and Nordic states, including Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Finland, to exchange experiences and join forces on border strengthening efforts.

Deputy Prime Minister and National Defence Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz says that Poland also wants to strengthen its cooperation with the United States, the UK and France.

“Polish and German soldiers are working side by side to strengthen defensive infrastructure along the border and reinforce deterrence on NATO’s eastern flank,” Kosiniak-Kamysz said in a July 22 social media post. “This is only the beginning. Reconnaissance is underway ahead of support from French troops, and in September, reconnaissance involving American soldiers will begin.”

Denmark said in 2024 it would extend conscription to include women for the first time and increase standard service time to 11 months from four, while the number of conscripts is set to increase to 7,500 annually by 2033 from 5,000.

The new intake arrives as Denmark prepares to deploy conscripts to Greenland for the first time later this month, with a company of more than 100 soldiers set to serve for one month, taking over operational tasks from professional troops.

The deployment carries added political weight as U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly sought to annex the semi-autonomous Danish territory, citing national security, a demand firmly rejected by the governments of Greenland and Denmark.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen at last month’s NATO summit in Ankara said her nation was ready to defend every inch of territory in the military alliance, “including our own”.

Silas Nohr, a 19-year-old first-day conscript from the town of Varde in western Denmark, said he welcomed the longer service period.

“Now we have 11 months, and I feel like you can really get into it, really experience it and get a lot deeper into the military,” he said.

The new recruits face five months of basic training followed by six months of operational service. The Danish Armed Forces are also introducing new conscription tracks, including a drone platoon at the Special Operations Command.

The Nordic country’s program operates as a ballot system for all healthy young adults who turn 18, but has for many years consisted almost entirely of volunteers, with the lottery used only to fill remaining quotas.

Nordic neighbors Sweden, Finland and Norway also have a conscription-based military service, as does the Baltic region of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

Ukrainian F-16s have destroyed more than 2,500 Geran and Gerbera one-way attack drones, wrote airpower expert Justin Bronk in an analysis of the Ukraine air war for the Royal United Services Institute, a British think tank.

“[The] use of fighters against such drones has consumed an unsustainable number of airframe flying hours and air-to-air missiles … since mid-2024, when the Ukrainian Air Force received its first Western aircraft and trained crews,” the analysis reads.

“Russian industry produces more than 6,000 [one-way attack] drones per month, and fighter aircraft have only a finite number of airframe hours available before they need time consuming deep maintenance cycles to be performed at a factory by expert technicians.”

Ukraine’s fleet currently operates an estimated 39 F-16s, out of about 79 promised by various Western European nations. Ukraine also flies an estimated four Mirage 2000-5 fighters, out of up to 20 promised by France, plus a few Soviet-era Su-27 and MiG-29 fighters.

The F-16s have been a game changer in the Ukraine air war. They enable Ukraine’s small air force to launch stand-off attacks against ground targets using American-made JDAM and French-made AASM Hammer glide bombs. The threat they pose to Russia’s air force became evident earlier this month, when a Ukrainian F-16 reportedly downed an Su-35 over eastern Ukraine.

Ironically, the F-16 has proven such a capable aircraft that it has become a victim of its own success.

“The F-16 fleet has been over-tasked, mostly by C-UAS [counter-drone] interception duties, for which there is almost unlimited demand over time,” Bronk told Defense News.

The root of the dilemmas is that Ukraine is squeezed between multiple aerial threats.

In addition to drone strikes, Russia has launched numerous cruise and ballistic missiles at Ukrainian cities. Russia has become adept at launching massive combined strikes that begin with waves of drones, followed by cruise missiles, such as the Kh-101, and then ballistic missiles, such as the Iskander-M and Kinzhal.

Ukraine has managed to at least partially tame the drone threat by creating dense belts of short-range air defenses, or SHORAD. These SHORAD belts combine short-range anti-aircraft missiles, anti-aircraft guns, mobile machine gun teams and a variety of homegrown interceptor-drones.

The drawback there is maintaining dense SHORAD coverage along the 745-mile front line — plus defending cities in the rear — with short-range weapons.

“What unites all these mobile air defense teams and counter-drone teams is that their equipment and ammunition is relatively cheap and thus their operations are sustainable,” the RUSI analysis noted. “However, they are relatively personnel intensive to deploy at scale and require both force density and geographical depth to be effective.”

These limitations also point to the difficulties NATO would face in creating its own Ukrainian-style SHORAD system.

“NATO cannot replicate the density of SHORAD defenses that Ukraine deploys for C-UAS coverage, due to the huge personnel requirements of doing so on a sustainable basis,” Bronk told Defense News.

However, NATO could invest in radar-guided anti-aircraft guns to protect key installations, such as airbases and headquarters, and develop cheaper drone-killing munitions for aircraft such as the APKWS II rocket.

Nonetheless, this still leaves Russia’s cruise and ballistic missiles, against which SHORAD is largely ineffective.

As with the U.S. and Israel versus Iran’s missiles, Ukraine must carefully manage limited stockpiles of air defense interceptors like the American-made Patriot and the European-made SAMP/T.

Ideally, Ukraine should rely on SHORAD to stop the drones, while reserving its F-16s for other missions, Bronk argues.

“Other systems need to be used wherever possible for [one-way attack] drones so that F-16 capacity can be used to intercept cruise missiles and deliver strike missions,” Bronk explained. “Within the Ukrainian Air Force inventory, it is by far the most efficient asset for this.”

Bronk believes that F-16 stand-off ground attacks could be even more effective — if Ukraine’s high command was less rigid.

“There is potential for the Ukrainian Air Force to have greater effects if squadrons and wings are given more authority to plan strikes themselves rather than being centrally tasked by Army-centric headquarters elements,” he said.

Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby announced on X Tuesday that the Defense Department had “kicked off” the review Hegseth unveiled during the NATO defense ministerial in Brussels on June 18. Hegseth described the effort at the time as “a real review” of America’s force posture and basing in Europe.

Neither Hegseth’s announcement nor Colby’s statement announced troop reductions, unit movements or installation changes as part of the review. The Pentagon also has not said when the review’s recommendations will be released.

The review follows repeated calls by Trump administration officials for European allies to assume greater responsibility for NATO’s conventional defense as the administration reassesses U.S. force posture worldwide.

Hegseth said the review is expected to take up to six months, but it “could be less.” He shared that the review will include input from U.S. European Command as well as consultations with Congress and U.S. allies.

Colby said the review is designed to ensure NATO is “moving fast and irreversibly toward Europe taking primary responsibility for its conventional defense.” He explained the outcome of the review is intended to accelerate NATO’s transition to what he described as “a stronger, more equitable, and sustainable alliance.”

The Pentagon review aims to ensure U.S. force posture in Europe reflects the 2025 National Security Strategy and the 2026 National Defense Strategy. Colby said the department will develop a range of options based on “strategic rigor, a strong empirical baseline, and a clear sense of the geopolitical and military realities.”

Colby also said he looks forward to working closely with Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe, on the review. He noted that the Defense Department plans to have “extensive consultations” with European allies, Congress and other parts of the U.S. government throughout the process.

Zelenskyy met Trump privately in the Oval Office before a service honoring Senator Lindsey Graham in the afternoon. He also held talks with Finnish President Alexander Stubb at a Washington hotel and met with U.S. senators at the U.S. Capitol.

The whirlwind visit offered Zelenskyy a chance to shore up U.S. military support for Ukraine when relations are warmer than they have been in months. The U.S., however, has been sitting on aid for Kyiv, and Graham’s death means the loss of one of Ukraine’s most influential advocates in Washington.

Zelenskyy told reporters that he emphasized Ukraine’s need for anti-ballistic missile systems and interceptors during his meetings with Trump and the senators, while welcoming new U.S. legislation advancing sweeping Russian energy sanctions.

Zelenskyy told reporters that Ukraine had drones that could destroy Iranian- and Russian-built drones but needed more weapons to defend against ballistic missiles fired by Moscow.

“The real problem is anti-ballistic systems and anti-ballistic missiles,” he said after a meeting with senators at the U.S. Capitol. “And of course, I (shared) what we need.”

Earlier, on Telegram, he said that he had a “good meeting” with Trump and they had discussed the U.S. leader’s promise at a NATO summit this month to grant Ukraine a license to produce its own Patriot missile interceptors.

As Russia has stepped up its air attacks, Ukraine has run chronically low on supplies of Patriots, which remain the only weapon in its arsenal capable of downing ballistic missiles.

Zelenskyy later told Fox News’ “Hannity” show that Trump had “accepted that he will give us licenses” to produce the interceptors.

“We also talked about diplomacy – it is important to step up the diplomatic process,” Zelenskyy said after the meeting with senators, referring to stalled peace talks with Russia to end the war, now in its fifth year.

U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, have agreed to visit Ukraine for the first time as part of the effort to kick-start their mediation efforts with Russia, according to two sources familiar with the talks. The two have visited Russia and met with Russian President Vladimir Putin multiple times since Trump returned to office in January 2025.

Zelenskyy said last week he had spoken with the pair about the prospects for renewed talks. No specific date was set for a visit, one of the sources said.

Separately, Zelenskyy said he had met with officials from Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest weapons maker and one of the companies that produces Patriot interceptors. He said that teams were already working on solutions “to move to co-production as quickly as possible.”

Relations have improved

Following Graham’s funeral, the Ukrainian leader spoke for nearly an hour with U.S. senators before entering the Senate chamber to witness a key vote on a bipartisan package of new sanctions on Russia. Graham had long championed the measure and announced Trump’s support just days before his death.

“Sanctions pressure on Russia is very important,” he said, saying the legislation would squeeze Russia’s ability to finance the war, while signaling U.S. support for the Ukrainian people.

“With this vote, we are going to show Putin he can’t bully Ukraine,” U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters. “America stands behind Ukraine … We are going to back Ukraine, and they’re going to win and beat Putin.”

Zelenskyy’s visit came after a letter from the Pentagon to lawmakers showed the Trump administration has told Congress it will not finish spending $400 million authorized for aid to Ukraine until fiscal year 2029.

Democrats and some of Trump’s fellow Republicans have criticized the Pentagon for sitting on aid for Kyiv that members of both parties backed last year.

Zelenskyy and Trump clashed repeatedly early in Trump’s second term, but relations between the two have improved in recent months as Ukraine has racked up more successes in the war, including with increased attacks on Russia’s oil industry.

Graham, a South Carolina Republican who died suddenly of a heart ailment on July 11 at age 71, was one of Trump’s most visible allies. He was a defense hawk who regularly called for an interventionist U.S. role on the world stage and strongly backed Ukraine.

He met with Zelenskyy in Kyiv only a day before his death, the 10th time he had visited Ukraine since Russia’s 2022 invasion.

Ukrainian military drones targeting Russia have strayed into the airspace of Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania this year, raising concerns that the war in Ukraine is spilling over into NATO’s northern borders.

Finland was taking the steps “so that we can ensure the authorities are able to operate if drones were to stray into the area, meaning safe countermeasures and the safety of bystanders,” a military spokesperson said.

The spokesperson said the military could not comment on the source of the information about possible drone activity, “as it is operational information.”

Ukraine has stepped up attacks on Russian targets with long-range drones. It and NATO countries have blamed Russian signal jamming for diverting some Ukrainian drones into NATO airspace. Moscow accuses Ukraine of intentionally steering drones across the borders.