Sweden joins the Freya pan-European anti-ballistic shield project - Zelenskyy

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy hopes that over the summer, in addition to Sweden, a number of other European partner countries will join the Freya program—a pan-European anti-ballistic shield. He stated this to journalists during a visit to Sweden, UNN reports.

Zelenskyy stated that he is actively promoting the ideas of creating Ukrainian ballistics to foreign partners, as well as the development of a Ukrainian anti-ballistic shield to protect the skies over Europe. 

"I am pushing this idea, which is very difficult because no one wants to have strong competitors. I am constantly pushing the idea of Ukrainian ballistics and Ukrainian anti-ballistics,"

According to him, it is not only Russia that is against Ukraine having its own ballistic missiles. Foreign manufacturers, who see Ukraine as a competitor, do not want this either.

"It is not only Russia that doesn't want Ukrainian ballistics. Russia for obvious reasons, but not only Russia. Also for obvious reasons—reasons of business and competition—but I believe that I will push this idea through, just as we are pushing the idea of anti-ballistics, a European anti-ballistic system,"

This obviously refers to ballistic missiles, the development of which is being carried out by the Ukrainian company Fire Point.  The company's chief designer and co-owner, Denys Shtylerman, stated in an interview that the FP-9 ballistic missile is completing bench tests and moving to the flight test stage. According to the designer, one missile will carry about 800 kg of combat payload.

Shtylerman predicts that as early as this autumn, Ukraine will be able to strike Moscow with its own ballistic missiles.

In addition, Fire Point is the lead company in the development and launch of the Freya project—a Ukrainian concept for a next-generation pan-European anti-ballistic shield based on open architecture and proprietary interception technologies.

According to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, during his visit to Sweden, an agreement was reached for the country to join the creation of the Freya European sky protection system.

"Today we agreed with Sweden that we will definitely do this. This is the first of the major partners we need for anti-ballistics. We still need a couple more partners. I believe that over the summer, through various meeting formats, we will push this idea through and start working on overcoming this ballistic challenge, which is very difficult. As President, I want this very much,"

As Fire Point explains, a key feature of the Freya system is its independence from external control, unlike, for example, the American Patriot anti-aircraft missile systems, the use of which can be manually blocked from the US at any time.

"Freya is about intercepting ballistics. We proposed a pan-European anti-ballistic shield based on our interceptor and based on an open architecture and software solution that will prove to the end-user that this solution can never be turned off by the manufacturer, the company that sold it to them, or the country that sold it to them,"

As a reminder

Earlier, Shtylerman stated that a Ukrainian analogue of the Patriot could begin intercepting Russian ballistics by the end of the year. The Freya project has already been supported by Germany, France, and Norway.