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\n Published on 20\/02\/2026 – 16:30 GMT+1\u2022Updated
\n 17:28\n <\/p>\n
Europe’s five largest defence spenders announced a joint programme on Friday to develop low-cost drones and autonomous platforms, drawing on Ukrainian battlefield experience from nearly four years of Russia’s all-out invasion.<\/p>\n
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Defence ministers from Poland, France, Germany, Italy and the UK met in Krakow to launch the Low-Cost Effectors and Autonomous Platforms (LEAP) initiative.<\/p>\n
Ukraine’s Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov joined the meeting via video link, alongside EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas and NATO Deputy Secretary General Radmila \u0160ekerinska.<\/p>\n
The programme aims to develop cheaper alternatives to expensive air defence missiles for shooting down drones, as Russia’s war in Ukraine has shown how autonomous interceptor drones can be a cheap and effective tool against aerial threats.<\/p>\n
“We are implementing the experience from Ukraine and developing our industrial potential in a dynamic way. Europe has woken up,” Polish Defence Minister W\u0142adys\u0142aw Kosiniak-Kamysz said at a press conference after the meeting.<\/p>\n
Drone warfare revolution<\/p>\n
Kosiniak-Kamysz said unmanned systems have revolutionised warfare in Ukraine, changing operational planning for many armies. <\/p>\n
He noted that drones are continually modernised rather than bought “for stock”, with AI now integrated into drone systems.<\/p>\n
“Technologies and combat techniques are changing dynamically, we need to respond quickly and adequately,” he said.<\/p>\n
UK Minister for Defence Procurement Luke Pollard said the five nations needed to match the cost of threats with the cost of defence.<\/p>\n
“We have some of the best kit on the entire planet for shooting down air threats. The problem is to be effective at shooting down relatively low-cost missiles, drones and other threats facing us,” he said.<\/p>\n
NATO summit preparation<\/p>\n
The ministers are preparing for the NATO summit in Ankara, with one more E5 meeting scheduled before the gathering. Kosiniak-Kamysz said the summit would focus on assessing NATO’s military capabilities.<\/p>\n
“Just as in The Hague we decided on the level of spending, in Ankara we will discuss and present specific capabilities,” he said.<\/p>\n
French Armed Forces Minister Catherine Vautrin emphasised the importance of Polish infrastructure for supporting Ukraine, particularly the logistics hub in Rzesz\u00f3w.<\/p>\n
“We all know that we need to strengthen the European dimension of security, especially in view of the next Ankara summit,” Vautrin said.<\/p>\n
Friday’s meeting was the seventh gathering of E5 defence ministers since 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published on 20\/02\/2026 – 16:30 GMT+1\u2022Updated 17:28 Europe’s five largest defence spenders announced a joint programme on Friday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":932,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[227,709,417,492,56,9,127],"class_list":{"0":"post-931","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-krakow","8":"tag-defence","9":"tag-france","10":"tag-germany","11":"tag-italy","12":"tag-krakow","13":"tag-poland","14":"tag-ukraine"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}