Ukraine to get licence to produce Patriot missiles, Trump says

In Kyiv, there was some degree of scepticism that the interceptor missiles could be produced on Ukrainian territory at this stage.Military expert Ivan Stupak, an ex-security service officer, told the BBC that while the Patriots were vital for Ukraine's defence: "Unfortunately, Ukraine is not able to produce such kinds of advanced munition, because it's really sophisticated, cutting-edge equipment.""Technically and legally, I think this will be deployed to European soil instead - and supervised," he added, and could take many months.During the news conference, Trump acknowledged that Ukraine had been recently having significant success in launching long-range strikes on Russia, which have hit targets thousands of kilometres away from the frontline. "It's an escalation, but it's also an escalation that can help lead to an end," Trump said.Sitting next to Trump, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Ukraine's strikes on Russian refineries were needed to show Moscow "how difficult it is to defend its airspace", and thus push the Kremlin to end the war. In his remarks Trump also claimed Vladimir Putin - with whom he said he spoke often - wanted to make a deal to end the war with Ukraine, which began with Russia's full-scale invasion of the country in 2022. The US president has made similar comments before, but to this day his efforts to broker talks between Kyiv and Moscow have not yielded any results.