WASHINGTON -- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has issued an unusually direct appeal to President Donald Trump and the US Congress, warning that Ukraine urgently needs additional Patriot missile systems as Russia intensifies ballistic missile attacks on Ukrainian cities.In a five-page letter delivered to the White House and Capitol Hill, Zelenskyy said Ukraine’s ability to protect civilians now depends heavily on US-made Patriot systems, describing ballistic missiles as one of Moscow’s remaining key battlefield advantages.Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States, Olha Stefanishyna, told RFE/RL in an interview on May 27 that Kyiv’s message in the letter was that shifting diplomatic rhetoric has not altered conditions on the ground.
“There might be different diplomatic rhetoric, there might be different diplomatic dynamics, there might be different priorities, but the reality is not changing,” she said.“The reality is not changing on the ground. People are dying.”Zelenskyy wrote in the letter, a text of which was obtained by RFE/RL, that with "the fate of many lives" being decided in the war, Patriot systems remain the "most-effective defense against every type of Russian ballistic missile.”The appeal comes as the Trump administration continues to avoid large-scale direct military aid packages for Kyiv, instead relying on the Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List (PURL) mechanism under which NATO allies purchase US weapons systems for Ukraine.But Zelenskyy warned that deliveries under the program are not keeping pace with battlefield needs.“The current pace of deliveries through the PURL program is no longer keeping up with the reality of the threat we face,” he wrote.The Ukrainian president also pointed to rising global demand for Patriot interceptors amid broader international security pressures and competing requirements for US stockpiles.“For us -- for a nation fighting for its survival -- there is hardly anything more painful to see than Patriot batteries with no missiles loaded,” Zelenskyy wrote.
