Ukraine and nine European nations — Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom — have announced the formation of a joint coalition to develop an integrated anti-ballistic missile defence system for Europe. The declaration, signed on Monday on the sidelines of a broader "Coalition of the Willing" summit in Paris, identifies the growing threat posed by ballistic missiles, which are significantly harder to intercept than cruise missiles or drones, as the driving force behind the initiative.
The joint statement calls for "an integrated missile defence architecture to deter and neutralise future missile threats," explicitly drawing on Ukraine's hard-won operational experience defending against Russian strikes. The coalition — sometimes referred to under the codename Freyja — is described as complementing, rather than replacing, existing systems such as the US-made Patriot, which currently represents Ukraine's only means of intercepting ballistic missiles. Ukraine faces severe shortages of Patriot interceptor munitions, contributing to a rising civilian death toll. A dozen European defence companies, including Eurosam, Leonardo, Thales, Saab and Ukraine's own Fire Point, were present at the summit. No operational timeline was specified in the declaration, though Ukraine is pressing for progress before winter, when Russia typically intensifies attacks on the country's energy infrastructure.
The summit produced a series of further announcements. French President Emmanuel Macron confirmed that France will, for the first time, license production of several French weapons systems to Ukraine, including SCALP long-range cruise missiles, AASM precision-guided bombs, and Aster air-defence interceptor missiles. Ukraine also ordered 16 Rafale fighter jets, with delivery and operational deployment targeted for 2028–2029, as well as next-generation SAMP-T air defence systems, the Franco-Italian ground-based missile defence platform. Separately, the United Kingdom signed up to participate in the European Union's €90 billion support loan for Ukraine — a significant step in post-Brexit UK-EU defence cooperation — meaning British firms will be eligible to supply weapons financed by the fund.
Macron also announced that the proposed Multinational Force for Ukraine, envisioned as a stabilisation presence in the event of a ceasefire, will conduct exercises in countries neighbouring Ukraine in the coming months to, in his words, "validate our deployment plans and demonstrate that we are ready, determined and credible." The Paris meeting followed a NATO summit last week that similarly sought to project long-term allied unity behind Kyiv. Russia's Kremlin dismissed Monday's coalition as a grouping of "warmongers" who "do not want peace," with spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying Moscow would be "watching closely."
The initiative reflects a broader European calculation that the continent can no longer rely solely on American-supplied systems for its missile defence needs. Macron, speaking ahead of Bastille Day — France's national holiday on 14 July — warned European governments against fragmented, go-it-alone defence strategies, calling for collective rearmament. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy framed the new coalition in directly strategic terms: "The more means Ukraine has to shoot down Russian ballistic missiles, the greater the chance that Vladimir Putin will come to the negotiating table, since his last argument in this war will no longer work."