Pistorius Sends PAC-2 Interceptors From Bundeswehr Stock as Khmara Contracts 1,000 Patriot Missiles
Berlin, 8 September 2026
Key points
- Boris Pistorius told the 36th Ukraine Defence Contact Group, held by video on 8 September, that he had decided to deliver PAC-2 interceptors from Bundeswehr stock; the ministry's note gives no quantity and no date and describes the transfer as the one announced at the Ankara summit in July
- Germany also sends more AIM-9L Sidewinder rounds from stock, continues IRIS-T deliveries with several thousand more to be ordered under the EU loan, and finances several tens of thousands of long-range artillery rounds that Britain procures
- Yevhen Khmara, at his first meeting as defence minister, said Ukraine is contracting about 1,000 Patriot missiles, most for delivery over the coming years, and asked for 300 from allied stocks now against those future rounds, plus 500 air-to-air missiles
- Britain pledged GBP 100 million through NATO's Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List; the Commission's EUR 3.2 billion disbursement for PAC-3 rounds goes to formal approval on 11 September with a derogation from the loan's 65 per cent European-content rule
Germany's July pledge became a delivery decision on 8 September: Boris Pistorius told the Ukraine Defence Contact Group he would send PAC-2 rounds from Bundeswehr stock, unnumbered and undated, and Ukraine's new defence minister offered about 1,000 contracted Patriot missiles as repayment for 300 delivered now.
The 36th meeting was Wes Streeting's first in the chair and Yevhen Khmara's first as minister. Pistorius: "I've decided to deliver urgently needed PAC-2 interceptor missiles from Bundeswehr stocks to Ukraine", followed by an appeal to every member "to look into their own stocks and make similar deliveries". The note adds AIM-9L Sidewinders already in transit, continued IRIS-T deliveries with several thousand more to be ordered under the EU loan, and German financing for tens of thousands of artillery rounds procured by Britain. On the PAC-2 rounds it states neither how many nor when.
Khmara: "Ukraine is signing contracts for approximately 1,000 missiles for Patriot systems", most for delivery "over the coming years", hence the request to "supply us with the missiles from your stocks today in exchange for future improved missiles from our contracts". The immediate ask is 300 Patriot interceptors, 500 air-to-air missiles and man-portable systems, against a stated gap of EUR 23 billion. Britain added GBP 100 million through the NATO requirements list; the Commission's EUR 3.2 billion, for PAC-3 rounds needing a content-rule derogation, goes to approval on 11 September.
The swap Bloomberg described in June is now Kyiv's public offer, and Berlin has accepted its half of it twice without a number. The request for dozens of interceptors from stock, repaid in kind from scheduled production, was reported on 4 June; the Ankara pledge of 8 July carried no figure, and the 600 PAC-2 rounds over 2027–28 that Zelenskyy attributed to Chancellor Merz on 24 August have not appeared in a German document. The line that would refill the stock, COMLOG's GEM-T production at Schrobenhausen, delivers no earlier than the end of 2027, so what leaves the depots this autumn is not replaced before 2028; that interval, not the missing quantity, is what the ministry is weighing. Signal No. 141 records the rounds as PAC-2, the variant optimised against cruise missiles and aircraft, with limited reach against the ballistic rounds that opened the Kyiv salvo the same morning.
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