Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy<\/a>, along with around a dozen defence manufacturers.<\/p>\n\u201cSince we\u2019re working within such a tight timeframe, we have an ambitious goal: to have an MVP (minimum viable product) ready by the first half of next year,\u201d Aloian said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is a prototype that can already demonstrate its first practical results.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ukraine seeks alternative to Patriot system<\/p>\n
Ukraine remains heavily reliant on the US-made Patriot air defence system, the only weapon in its arsenal capable of reliably intercepting Russian ballistic missiles travelling at several times the speed of sound.<\/p>\n
However, supplies of Patriot systems have been affected by political uncertainty, limited stockpiles and lengthy production timelines.<\/p>\n
Russia has intensified ballistic missile attacks on Kyiv and the southern port city of Odesa this month, launching dozens of missiles, most of which Ukraine was unable to intercept because of a shortage of interceptor missiles.<\/p>\n
Ukraine has said it is ready to contribute a launcher and an interceptor missile to the Freyja project. Zelenskyy said earlier this month that the interceptor was \u201cjust a matter of testing\u201d and expressed hope that the system would become operational within a year.<\/p>\n
European partners to contribute key technologies<\/p>\n
Kyiv expects partner countries to provide technologies, including advanced radar systems, sensors and expertise in missile guidance and control electronics.<\/p>\n
Defence companies participating in the initiative include Eurosam, which manufactures the SAMP-T interceptor system, as well as Leonardo, Thales and Saab.<\/p>\n
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Ukrainian missile and drone manufacturer Fire Point, which developed the Flamingo cruise missile, will serve as the lead industrial partner for the project. Last month, the company announced an agreement with German defence manufacturer Hensoldt to supply radar technology for Freyja.<\/p>\n
Freyja designed as an open system<\/p>\n
The Freyja project aims to create a lower-cost alternative to the Patriot system, which is also widely used by several European countries. Other air defence systems, including the Franco-Italian SAMP\/T and Germany\u2019s IRIS-T, have yet to demonstrate the ability to intercept ballistic missiles.<\/p>\n
Zelenskyy has likened the Freyja coalition to Lego, describing it as a system that combines components from different defence manufacturers.<\/p>\n
Aloian said manufacturers had been asked to develop an open architecture that would allow countries to integrate their own equipment.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe overall logic of this system is that it\u2019s an open architecture,\u201d he said. \u201cSo if Denmark says \u2018I want the Freyja system with a Danish-made Weibel radar,\u2019 that\u2019s fine. If Sweden says they want the Saab system, that\u2019s no problem either.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ukraine is aiming to develop a prototype of its European-backed Freyja anti-ballistic defence system in the first half…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21461,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[3411,8026,8019,8021,2088,8023,8018,8024,8025,8020,8022,8027,6987,2031,6535,659,6489,6853,6530,8017,8028,287,35],"class_list":["post-21460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-davyd-aloian","tag-europe-defence-cooperation","tag-european-anti-ballistic-coalition","tag-eurosam","tag-fire-point","tag-flamingo-cruise-missile","tag-freyja-anti-ballistic-system","tag-hensoldt-radar","tag-iris-t","tag-kyiv-air-defence","tag-leonardo-defence","tag-missile-defence-system","tag-odesa-attacks","tag-patriot-missile-system","tag-russian-ballistic-missiles","tag-saab","tag-samp-t","tag-thales","tag-ukraine-air-defence","tag-ukraine-freyja-project","tag-ukraine-military-news","tag-ukraine-russia-war","tag-volodymyr-zelensky"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21460\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}