Hegseth Withholds Sign-Off on Ukrainian Missile Orders

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated on Monday that his country has waited nearly a month for U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to approve orders for Patriot and NASAMS missiles. The delay occurs as Russia increases strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure and civilian sites.

Zelensky posted on X that he instructed his team to reiterate the issue to American counterparts. He noted that the United States supplies these interceptors under the PURL program, a mechanism that allows NATO allies to purchase and transfer weapons to Ukraine.

The holdup follows comments from U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio last week. Rubio acknowledged that a batch of interceptors had not yet been delivered but insisted the lag was not driven by political calculations.

This friction adds to existing tensions between Kyiv and Washington. President Donald Trump recently announced a diesel deal with Russia and criticized Zelensky for not halting Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries. These moves have strained diplomatic relations between the two leaders.

Operational challenges have compounded the missile delay. Ukrainian officials reported gaps in U.S. intelligence sharing regarding Russian missile trajectories. Additionally, Starlink's military version, Starshield, was throttled for several days. Reuters reported that the order to limit bandwidth originated inside the White House, although Elon Musk and U.S. officials have publicly disputed who made that decision.