Will Project Freyja, the European Anti-Missile System for Ukraine Take Off?

Ukraine and nine  European countries have announced a new anti-missile project to deliver a low cost, high volume system to take down Russian ballsitic missiles flying freely over Ukraine.

The Integrated Anti-Ballistic Missile Coalition was launched in Paris earliier this week by Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine and the UK.

 Its flagship project will be the Freyja, a  missile and air defence system which Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky believes could be developed within the next 12 months.

Ukraine has repeatedly appealed for more air defence missiles as Russia continues large-scale attacks using ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones. The project is expected to combine Ukrainian work on an interceptor missile with radars and other technology produced by European defence companies.

Companies represented at the meeting included MBDA, Thales, Saab, Leonardo, Eurosam, Diehl Defence, Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace and Ukraine's Fire Point.

Who will perform what role in project Freyja?

Crucially, the meeting has not spelt out what components of the new proposed system will come from which country and company, the budget for the project and who will fund what.

The project is planned to take off by the end of this year with the first systems in place by 2027.

Ukraine has been facing a severe shortage of anti-missile interceptors- the Patriot PAC-3 missiles, the favoured systems against Russian missiles, are expensive and the US is not too eager to send all its stocks to Ukraine especially when they are also needed in its war against Iran.

Ukraine has come out with a plan to make the interceptors within its territory while seeking launchers, seekers and other components coming from its European supporters.