内容摘要：has said that the need to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine had not arisen and that he hopes it will not.

has said that the need to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine had not arisen and that he hopes it will not.

Some extra production capacity could come from Ukraine, which has ramped up manufacturing of ammunition and drones since Russia’s invasion. Much harder to replace, experts said, are advanced American weapons, including air defenses.An Airbus A330 MRTT tanker and transport aircraft is being built at the Airbus manufacturing plant in Getafe, central Spain, on March 31, 2025. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

An Airbus A330 MRTT tanker and transport aircraft is being built at the Airbus manufacturing plant in Getafe, central Spain, on March 31, 2025. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)Russia has attacked Ukraine almost nightly since Putin’s forces invaded in February 2022, flooding the skies with missiles and drones, includingto exhaust Ukraine’s limited air defenses. In April, at least 57 people were killed in multiple strikes.

The death toll from the Russian attacks would “inevitably” be higher without the American Patriot air-defense missile systems protecting Ukraine’s skies, said Douglas Barrie, senior fellow for military aerospace at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.The Patriots can track and intercept Russian missiles, including the hypersonic Kinzhal, which Putin has boasted was unstoppable. Kyiv uses them to protect critical infrastructure, including the country’s energy grid.

Earlier this month, Zelenskyy asked to buy 10 Patriots, a request Trump dismissed. “You don’t start a war against someone 20 times your size and then hope that people give you some missiles,” he said, a day after a Russian strike on the Ukrainian city of Sumy killed 35 people.

France and Italy have given Ukraine their Aster SAMP/T air-defense system but the issue is not “quality, it’s quantity,” Barrie said, pointing to the larger U.S. defense industrial base and greater U.S. stockpiles.Following the attacks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Russia had ignored a U.S. proposal for a full and unconditional ceasefire for more than 50 days now.

“There were also our proposals — at the very least, to refrain from striking civilian infrastructure and to establish lasting silence in the sky, at sea, and on land,” he said. “Russia has responded to all this with new shelling and new assaults.”The U.S. and Ukraine on Wednesday

granting American access to Ukraine’s vast mineral resources, finalizing a deal months in the making that could enable continued military aid to Kyiv amid concerns that President Donald Trump might scale back support in ongoing peace negotiations with Russia.Zelenskyy originally proposed such a deal last year as a way of helping secure Ukraine’s future by tying it to U.S. interests. Ukrainian officials said