Residents of Ukraine’s capital stepped out into smoke-filled streets on Saturday morning after a barrage of Russian ballistic missiles killed at least nine people — only to learn that President Trump had backed away overnight from a promise to let Ukraine produce Patriot air-defense systems designed to stop such missiles.
Mr. Trump’s reversal was likely to come as a bitter disappointment in Ukraine, where officials have warned for months that dwindling stocks of Western-supplied Patriot interceptors are leaving the country increasingly vulnerable to Russia’s intensifying missile campaign.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, said that only one of the 27 ballistic missiles that Russia fired overnight at the capital, Kyiv, and other cities had been shot down “because there are no interceptors for the Patriot systems.”
“And it is this shortage of ballistic missile interceptors that only encourages Russia to launch such attacks that take human lives,” Mr. Zelensky wrote on social media. His post included a video of the attack’s aftermath, which showed firefighters dousing burning buildings and rescuers carrying away a body in a black bag.
Mr. Trump’s backtracking on his decision to let Ukraine manufacture U.S.-designed Patriots under license will make little difference for Kyiv in the short term. Experts had cautioned that it would take quite some time for Ukraine to start actually manufacturing the complex Patriot interceptors.
Still, Mr. Trump’s authorization had been welcomed as an opportunity to strengthen Ukraine’s air defenses over the long term, as the fighting increasingly shifts to long-range strikes targeting military sites, energy infrastructure and logistics hubs. More recently, the fighting has also spread across the Black Sea, with both sides targeting commercial vessels. On Saturday, Ukraine hit and sank a ship operated by Rosatom, the Russian nuclear giant.
For some Ukrainian officials, Mr. Trump’s comment to reporters on Friday that he had “not agreed” to license Patriot production served as another reminder of the American leader’s mercurial approach to the war in Ukraine.
“It’s a pattern in his political behavior,” said Oleksandr Merezhko, the chairman of the Ukrainian Parliament’s foreign affairs committee. “I call it one step forward and two steps back.”
Mr. Merezhko, a member of Mr. Zelensky’s party, said that when Mr. Trump first said he would let Ukraine make Patriots, he had thought to himself, “It’s too good to be true.”
“Unfortunately, I was proved right,” he said.
Mr. Trump could reverse himself again. On Thursday, speaking to The Financial Times, he had taken a more nuanced position, saying he was “not sure” whether he would grant Ukraine the license to produce Patriots.
Just days earlier, at the White House, Mr. Trump had met with Mr. Zelensky, who said the two leaders had “discussed licenses for Patriot interceptor production.” On the same day, Tuesday, Mr. Zelensky met with executives from Lockheed Martin, one of the American manufacturers of the Patriot system, leaving the impression that a formal licensing agreement was close at hand.
“We spoke about our joint capabilities related to Patriots and other systems,” Mr. Zelensky wrote on social media after that meeting. “Our teams are already working on specific solutions to move to co-production as quickly as possible and increase our capabilities to protect lives.”
Mr. Zelensky had not commented on Mr. Trump’s latest stance as of midday Saturday.
Mr. Trump told reporters on Friday that he decided against the licensing agreement because he did not want to give away a powerful technology that could one day be used against the United States. Currently, Germany and Japan are the only countries besides the United States that have permission to produce Patriots.
Mr. Merezhko said he saw the reversal differently. “Trump is doing everything not to antagonize Putin,” he said. “That’s the problem.”
Mr. Merezhko said that because of Mr. Trump’s conciliatory approach toward President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, Ukraine needs to be less reliant on American weapons for its own defense. That view has gained traction in government circles in Kyiv in recent months.
Ukraine has been trying to diversify its supplies of air-defense weapons, most recently partnering with a group of European allies to build a new antiballistic missile defense system. The project is led by the Ukrainian defense firm Fire Point, which is testing a new interceptor, although experts are skeptical about its abilities against Russian ballistic missiles.
In addition, Mr. Zelensky said last month that Ukraine would receive new versions of a French-Italian air-defense system called SAMP/T, which is expected to be deployed against ballistic missiles.
In the meantime, however, Ukraine will remain dependent on American-made Patriots, which are in short supply worldwide as war in the Middle East and conflicts elsewhere drive up demand.
On Kyiv’s streets, the consequences of Ukraine’s shortage of air-defense systems were unmistakable on Saturday. An acrid smell of smoke hung over the city center, the result of fires that had broken out across the capital. Rescue crews clawed through the rubble of collapsed buildings in search of survivors.
Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, wrote on social media that two partly collapsed apartment buildings had trapped residents inside. “It was a horrific night for Kyiv,” he said.
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