Kyiv’s drone leverage moved the US. Moscow could be next, a top Ukrainian official says.

KYIV, Ukraine — U.S. President Donald Trump told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the Group of Seven summit in France that he would consider letting Ukraine build its own Patriot interceptor missiles, the first time Washington has signaled openness to a request Kyiv has made since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022.Ukraine previewed the shift weeks before Trump’s signal proved the point. Asked by Military Times earlier this month in Kyiv whether its growing web of weapons deals was changing its hand in the peace talks, Kyrylo Budanov, head of the Office of the President of Ukraine and the country’s former military intelligence chief, said Kyiv no longer comes to the table empty-handed.“Ukraine is not a leader that only asks — we are partners who are ready to offer something that will be interesting,” he said. “We will take on what is actually interesting for the USA.”For most of the war, Ukraine has relied on Western weapons transfers to hold the line. That is starting to change as the United States looks to Ukraine’s interceptor drones to fill gaps in American air defenses that have been put to the test during the Iran war.“Licenses for the production of our missiles are being perceived positively by the American side for the first time,” Zelenskyy said on Tuesday, describing his conversation with Trump in Évian.Two days later in Brussels, Zelenskyy’s defense minister signed a separate agreement with Germany to jointly develop anti-ballistic missile defenses, the second major weapons-production deal with a key Western ally in a week.The war, meanwhile, is grinding toward a possible ceasefire by September, a window Zelenskyy has called the effective deadline for serious talks that have effectively been on hold since February. Ukraine is approaching it with something to trade rather than only a list of needs, according to Budanov.Some officials still see Ukraine’s stronger negotiating hand as a matter of debate. Trump said in March the U.S. doe