Ukraine to Hold First Meeting in France on Proposed Domestic Ballistic-Missile Defense System

Ukraine will hold its first coalition meeting on a homegrown ballistic missile defense system in France in the coming days, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday. The meeting advances Kyiv’s yearslong effort to begin producing a domestically made counter to Russia’s ballistic missiles.

Defense News reported that the push follows this week’s NATO summit in Ankara, where allies pledged €70 billion ($80 billion) in military aid for Ukraine this year.

U.S. President Donald Trump also pledged to allow Ukraine a license to build its own Patriot interceptors. “We’ll give them the right to make Patriots,” he said. Zelenskyy described FREYA as Ukraine’s anti-ballistic system, an analogue of Patriot for intercepting ballistic targets but designed for more mass production and lower cost.

“This is a European model,” he said. Long-range missile and drone strikes caused 45% of Ukraine’s civilian casualties in May, the worst monthly toll since April 2022, according to a U.N. report. X interceptor produced by the Ukrainian company Fire Point and is designed to hit a ballistic target at roughly 15 miles altitude.

Fire Point has signed a memorandum with Germany’s Hensoldt for radar technology and is in talks with France’s Thales, Italy’s Leonardo, and Norway’s Kongsberg to supply tracking and command-and-control systems. The Freya coalition comprises roughly eight partner nations, Zelenskyy said. X interceptor, versus roughly $3.8 million for a Patriot PAC-3.

The missile was flight-tested in early June, the company said, and aims to mass-produce three a day starting in August and intercept its first ballistic missile by the end of 2027. The upcoming meeting in France may yield the next updates, as the current plan depends on partner nations, their manufacturers and their production capacity signing on, Zelenskyy said.