BELFAST — RTX subsidiary Raytheon has signed a $3.7 billion contract to supply Ukraine with Patriot Advanced Capability-2 (PAC-2) Guidance Enhanced Missile-Tactical (GEM-T) interceptors, in a much-needed boost for the country’s air defenses.
RTX said in an announcement Tuesday that a new GEM-T production site in Schrobenhausen, Germany, is set to play a “key role” in the commercial sale. The future facility is to be operated by the COMLOG joint venture, established by MBDA Deutschland and Raytheon.
In a related release, the German Ministry of Defence noted that it will fund the PAC-2 package, alongside financing supplies to Kyiv of an undisclosed number of launchers for Diehl-produced IRIS-T medium-range air defense systems.
As part of talks between German and Ukrainian officials in Berlin on Tuesday, the two nations also struck a drone production agreement.
A missile quantity and a timeline for delivery concerning the PAC-2 contract were not disclosed by the US manufacturer, but the announcement comes as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pushes partner nations to agree on new air defense weapon system commitments.
“The top diplomatic priority for Ukraine right now is cooperation for the sake of air defense,” he said in a post on X today. “We need air defense missiles every single day — every day the Russians continue their strikes on our cities.”
He stressed that NATO’s Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List (PURL) initiative, enabling alliance members to fund the supply of US-made weapon systems to Kyiv “must continue to operate.”
Zelensky’s stance follows reports last month that Washington is weighing whether to divert equipment planned for Kyiv to the Middle East in a bid to replace depleted stocks used against Iran. Harvard Kennedy School research estimates that the DoD expended more Patriot missiles in the first four days of the Iran war alone than it has provided to Ukraine since the conflict with Russia started over four years ago.
Today Zelenskyy warned of a shortage of Patriot systems in an interview with German broadcaster ZDF. “We have such a deficit right now, it couldn’t be worse,” he explained.
From a broader regional perspective, Tom Laliberty, president of land and air defense systems at Raytheon, told Breaking Defense in January that the Schrobenhausen production line is ready to begin deliveries from 2028 onward, in support of a NATO-signed, $5.5 billion PAC-2 missile contract.
According to RTX, the munition is capable of intercepting “all types of airborne threats, including tactical ballistic missiles.”
In a separate move, today the UK rolled out its biggest drone support package to Ukraine to date, covering 120,000 aircraft — based on a mix of strike, intelligence and reconnaissance, logistics, and maritime types.
The new equipment drive is funded under Britain’s £3 billion ($4.06 billion) military support spending plan for Kyiv this year and under the G7’s Extraordinary Revenue Loans agreement (ERA), according to a British MoD statement.
It said that the “majority” of the drones will be produced by local firms, including Tekever, Windracers and Malloy Aeronautics.
