President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy hopes that within the next 12 months we will see the FREYJA anti-ballistic shield in operation. UNN reports this with reference to the speech of President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy before the start of the Anti-Ballistic Coalition meeting.
"I hope that within the next 12 months we will see FREYJA in operation. The threat of ballistic missiles in the world will only increase. This is one of the main consequences of the wars of Russia and Iran. Therefore, FREYJA must become a reality," Zelenskyy said.
The President of Ukraine emphasized that today's meeting, at which the declaration on the creation of the Anti-Ballistic Coalition was signed, should become historic.
"Europe needs more anti-ballistic systems – strong, reliable, and cheaper than other systems. Together we can create such a system and interceptor missiles for it," the President said.
In this project, Ukraine provides the anti-ballistic missile on which the system will be based.
"We are currently completing work on it. Others have radars and other critically important components. It is important that we join forces. Today, at the level of leaders, it is very important to politically confirm that FREYJA is our joint project," the head of state emphasized.
The joint declaration was signed, in addition to Ukraine, by the leaders of nine other European countries: Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. The Ukrainian defense company Fire Point, which developed the FP-7.x interceptor missile, will be involved in the development of FREYJA from Ukraine. The European partners will be represented by: Thales, HENSOLDT, Diehl Defence, Saab, Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace, Weibel, Leonardo, MBDA, Eurosam, Safran, and Destinus. They will provide the components necessary for building a full-fledged air defense system, which will be integrated with the Ukrainian missile.
The pan-European anti-ballistic shield FREYJA was immediately conceived as one that would unite European partners. As President Zelenskyy noted, Ukraine is capable of independently creating such a system, but this will take years, because in addition to the missile, FREYJA requires the integration of a whole range of components.
The Ukrainian FP-7.x missile, as previously reported by the co-founder and chief designer of Fire Point, has already passed tests, and now it is necessary to integrate it with other components of the system.
As Shtilerman explained, the key difference of the FREYJA project is its independence from external control. According to him, modern Western air defense systems often operate in a closed architecture format, where the supplier country or manufacturer, in fact, retains control over the critical elements of the system. It is expected that the project's architecture will be implemented in such a way that new partner countries can easily join it.