WASHINGTON will give Ukraine a licence to manufacture Patriot air defence systems, to help counter Russian missile attacks, US President Donald Trump said today.

“We’ll give them the right to make Patriots. We’ll show them how to do it,” Mr Trump said as he met his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky at the Nato summit in Turkey.

Patriots are expensive, in high demand and take a long time to produce. Mr Zelensky has been asking for more of them for years and more recently for a licence to make them.

The Trump-Zelensky meeting was a far cry from their previous acrimonious encounters, with the US President praising his opposite number’s willingness to pursue a peace deal with Russia.

He said Mr Zelensky had “done an amazing job” and “been very effective” in the war.

“We’ve actually developed a good relationship. It’s hard to believe,” Mr Trump said, claiming a peace deal was on the horizon and that the US would “work on some kind of security package” for Ukraine.

The meeting followed Russian drones and missile attacks that killed four people across Ukraine before dawn and at midday.

Meanwhile, Ukraine struck oil refineries in Russia’s Saratov and Tatarstan regions, according to Mr Zelensky.