NEW YORK, August 3. /TASS/. A long-term agreement on joint production of Patriot systems with Ukraine will not be implemented by the coming winter, US Permanent Representative to NATO Matthew Whitaker said in an interview with Fox Business.

"Obviously, the most important thing right now is that the air defense that Ukraine needs to survive another winter is moved as quickly as possible. Whether that's from our allies who have extra missiles, or whether that's producing more in our own factories, and a long-term production deal is not going to be [made] by this winter, we're going to keep working on it. But we're going to do first things first," Whitaker said.

US President Donald Trump said on July 31 that the United States should be very careful with granting licenses to other countries to manufacture its weapons. He said that Washington had not agreed to supply Kiev with either Patriot system technology or Tomahawk cruise missiles, and questioned this possibility.