#raytheon

Senior Airman Sarah Esparza, 51st Maintenance Squadron, 51st Fighter Wing, inspects AIM-9M Sidewinder training missiles.

^^^ The Trump administration has rapidly been using up US munitions in its undeclared and losing war on Iran.

If the US wishes to replenish the Patriot missiles which Trump wasted on his Iran war, one place it may eventually be able to get them cheap is Ukraine. US defense companies are worried about the competition.

Patriot makers fear Ukraine could improve and produce their missiles more cheaply – The Atlantic

US defence companies Raytheon and Lockheed Martin fear that, if granted a licence, Ukraine could improve Patriot interceptor missiles and produce them faster and at a significantly lower cost than the United States. Details: Raytheon and Lockheed publicly justify their concerns about granting Ukraine a licence by citing "their concerns around IP theft and tech transfer". However, a Republican official on Capitol Hill told The Atlantic that the real reason is fear of competition. US manufacturers are concerned that "the Ukrainians will find a way to improve the Patriot and then produce them at scale faster and for much less money than what the existing production lines in the US could do". Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy raised the issue of licensing the production of Patriot interceptor missiles during his meeting with his US counterpart Donald Trump at the White House on 28 July. Alongside a long-term licensing agreement, Ukraine also requested the immediate delivery of "several hundred" missiles from existing US stocks. [ ... ] The Atlantic's analysts noted that Ukraine's defence industry capacity has grown significantly and that the country is becoming less dependent on direct aid. Ukraine currently produces around 10 million drones a year, compared with 100,000 in the US.

Yep, Ukraine is already outproducing the US in the field of military drones by a staggering ratio of 100 to 1.

Countries in the Persian Gulf have consulted with Ukraine on how to protect their own vital infrastructure.

While Russia's way of doing things has not changed much since the days of the decrepit Soviet Union, Ukraine has left its former colonial master in the dust since declaring independence 35 years ago.

After Russia seized Crimea and Donbas in 2014, Ukraine reorganized its armed forces along modern NATO lines.

And since the full-scale invasion in 2022, Ukraine has become almost hyperactively innovative and inventive. Almost half of Russia's refining capacity has been destroyed or seriously damaged by Ukrainian munitions.

Trump previously commented that Russia was "invincible". The fact that today is already Day 1,629 of Putin's "3-day special operation" shows how demented Trump's perceptions are.