The Kyiv Independent Live in London: 
Poland offers to host Patriot system production site for Ukraine after Kyiv secures license from US
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Polish officials proposed on Sept. 27 that Ukraine use Polish land to manufacture Patriot systems after securing U.S. manufacturing licenses.
The offer follows President Volodymyr Zelensky's announcement on Sept. 25 that U.S. President Donald Trump granted Kyiv permission to produce its own Patriot air defense missiles.
"We'll see if that happens," Poland's Deputy Defense Minister Magdalena Sobkowiak-Czarnecka told Polish media. "We proposed that if such a factory is planned to be built in Ukraine, we propose building it in Poland, so that it would be in so-called 'safe territory.'"
The announcements come as Kyiv faces a critical shortage of air defense munitions, particularly of Patriots — the only weapons capable of reliably intercepting Russian ballistic missiles that continue to batter cities across the nation.
During overnight strikes across Ukraine, Russian forces killed 14 Ukrainians on Sept. 26-27.
On Sept. 24, Zelensky announced he had struck a 'very important' deal regarding a new batch of Patriot missiles while attending the U.N. General Assembly in New York City. Zelensky said that more Patriot interceptors would be heading to Kyiv soon, though he did not disclose which country would provide the missiles.
The Polish offer comes as Warsaw seeks to further U.S. military cooperation amid heightened risks emerging from Moscow.
Sobkowiak-Czarnecka said Polish lawmakers are pushing to accelerate the construction of a new U.S. military base in western Poland. The base would be intended to house at least 5,000 U.S. troops and their families.
"We need to prepare a special act…on faster construction of the base, defining the competences of specific ministries, because building the base is in fact building a small town," Sobkowiak-Czarnecka said.
Sobkowiak-Czarnecka said she expects U.S. officials to decide where the new base will be located by December of this year.
Russian missiles and drones have violated Poland's airspace numerous times throughout the war, including striking a locomotive of a Kyiv–Warsaw passenger train just 2 kilometers from the Polish border on Sept. 13.
