US President Donald Trump has said that Washington would give Kiev "the right to make" Patriot air-defence missiles as he met Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskyy at NATO's summit.
"So one of the things we're going to be talking about is we're going to give a licence to you to make Patriots. That's pretty cool, right. This way, you can't complain that we're not giving them enough," Trump told Zelenskyy on Wednesday.
"We haven't informed the company of that yet, but that'll work out all right."
Ukraine has been struggling to shoot down Russian ballistic missile attacks as supplies of the crucial US-made Patriot interceptors run low.
Despite Moscow's heavy bombardments of Kiev in recent days, Ukraine appears to have stabilised parts of the front line while conducting strikes deep into Russia.
The latest attack came as the NATO summit was under way in Ankara, where Trump was due to hold talks with Zelenskyy on the sidelines of the gathering.
‘Both sides want to see a settlement’
Trump said that those strikes could help to end the war. "It's an escalation, but it's also an escalation that can help lead to an end," Trump said.
Trump said both sides in the war in Ukraine want to see a settlement but Russia's President Vladimir Putin and Zelenskyy have been "difficult."
"We've settled a lot of wars, and this one is the one that I thought maybe would be the easiest, but Putin is a difficult character, and this guy's a difficult character," Trump said, referring to Zelenskyy, who was sitting next to him ahead of a meeting between the pair at the NATO summit in Ankara.
"I'm sure you will do everything to stop this war," Zelenskyy told Trump.
