FREYJA: Zelensky wants winter tests of the first European anti-ballistic system – eleven countries have already joined

Ukraine wants to test this winter the anti-ballistic system it is developing with European partners in the FREYJA programme. Volodymyr Zelensky announced it at a joint press conference with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in Copenhagen, during his state visit to Denmark. “I hope that in winter we will test the new anti-ballistic system, the first European anti-ballistic system, and that we will have some result. We all need it,” he said.

The Ukrainian president admitted Kyiv cannot carry such a project alone and thanked Danish defence industry and the other partners. Frederiksen replied that Denmark’s contribution could be radars: Danish companies, she said, can build the radars an anti-missile defence system needs. In Zelensky’s meeting with about 70 Danish companies, in the presence of King Frederik X and the prime minister, maritime drones, radars and components for the “future FREYJA system” were discussed, he said in a post.

Eleven countries and an office in Copenhagen

On Wednesday, November 11, Zelensky became the first foreign leader to speak from the rostrum of the Folketing, the Danish parliament. In the speech, published by the Ukrainian president’s office, he said eleven countries have already joined the programme and everything is ready to open a FREYJA office in Copenhagen, together with the Norwegians. He asked Danish MPs to back the programme, noting that very few countries in the world can produce anti-ballistic defence. “Russia will be almost toothless once we have enough air-defence missiles to shoot down its ballistic ones,” he said.

The need is visible in the daily reality of the war. Ballistic missiles, as Zelensky described them, remain the most dangerous weapon in the Russian arsenal, and in Ukraine the only systems that counter them effectively are the Patriots. In the same speech he complained that whenever Kyiv looks for missiles for its Patriots, they end up in the Middle East, leaving the launchers “empty”. Germany has already said it cannot give more Patriots for now, while a possible US sale of 500 PAC-3 MSE missiles is on the table.

FREYJA was presented on July 13 in Paris at the “coalition of the willing” summit, where Ukraine and nine European countries, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and the UK, founded the Anti-Ballistic Alliance. In September in Oslo Zelensky had said Ukraine can design and build the missile and launcher itself but needs partners for the whole. The programme was also discussed in his contacts with Nordic leaders in Copenhagen, as covered in our report on the Nordic summit, the same week Denmark unanimously approved its 32nd military aid package, worth €645 million.