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Zelenskyy: 5% of US interceptor stockpile would help Ukraine get through winter

Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President of Ukraine

13 August 2026 09:15 (UTC +04:00)

Ukraine has only a tenth of the interceptor missiles it urgently needs from the United States to stop surging Russian ballistic missile attacks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told CNN in an interview, adding his days are spent in “millions” of phone calls, in opaque deal-making with allies for more.

Russian ballistic attacks have risen fast in recent weeks, hitting the capital Kyiv particularly hard, as Moscow exploits Ukraine’s near-zero stocks of Patriot interceptor missiles. Zelenskyy said a tenth of the US current stockpile would be enough to stop all Russian ballistic missile attacks, but five per cent would be enough to get Ukraine through the winter.

“This year we have two and a half times less interceptors than we had in 2025,” he said. “Russia has two times more ballistic missiles per month than they had before.” July was the deadliest month for Ukrainian civilians since April 2022, according to the United Nations. “Each night you have attacks, and four or five times per month we have massive attacks … terrible nights. Very heroic, very resilient people really. But they (are) tired.”

He added that if the US “sell us 5%, we will go through the winter and save people’s lives. If they can sell us 10%, we will destroy all the Russians’ ballistic missiles. I have 1%.

There is a global shortage of the missiles due to the US war with Iran, where the US and Gulf states used dozens to tackle Iranian missile and low-cost drone attacks. The shortage is costing Ukraine most acutely, where cities some nights appear defenseless to Moscow’s rocket assaults.

Zelenskyy gave a rare window into his personal efforts daily to secure more interceptors, that involved deal-making he preferred to keep private. “This is what I live each day: from 1% to 5%. I have some months, and million phone calls … I try to exchange something to missiles … I do some things which I can’t even share. It doesn’t mean that it’s outside of the law. But I can’t speak about it.”

Zelenskyy said there were still doubts about how President Donald Trump’s apparent commitment to letting Ukraine build its own Patriot interceptor missiles would come to fruition.

Trump, on the sidelines of the NATO Ankara summit, said he would permit Ukraine to get a license to manufacture the complex interceptors themselves, but days later said he was unsure of the idea. The manufacturers of the Patriot missile systems have sent officials to Kyiv to discuss the idea, but results remain elusive.