Ukraine and nine European countries signed a joint declaration in Paris on July 13, 2026, establishing the Integrated Anti-Ballistic Missile Coalition. The ten signatories—Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom—are building a multinational framework to counter Russian ballistic and hypersonic missile strikes Al Jazeera.

At the centre of this coalition sits the Freyja project, a planned anti-ballistic missile interceptor system designed as a lower-cost European alternative to the US-made Patriot batteries that have been the backbone of Ukraine's air defence since 2022-23 Al Jazeera. The joint statement frames Freyja as complementing, not replacing, existing national air defence acquisitions already in motion across European capitals—a distinction that matters for understanding how European procurement operates. A dozen defence companies attended the Paris session, signalling that work will proceed through industry consortia rather than purely government-to-government channels Al Jazeera.

The same Paris meeting produced separate bilateral announcements. President Emmanuel Macron disclosed that Ukraine has ordered new Franco-Italian air defence systems and 16 Rafale fighter jets, with delivery scheduled for 2028-2029. Macron also announced that Kyiv has secured a licence to manufacture French-designed missiles domestically, including the SCALP cruise missile—a step that gives Ukraine independent production capacity for a long-range weapon it has previously depended on France and the UK to supply Al Jazeera. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Macron aligned their positions before the session, per Kyiv's official readout President of Ukraine.

Allies also committed to conducting military exercises in states bordering Ukraine, laying the groundwork for a multinational force to deploy once a ceasefire takes hold Al Jazeera. No ceasefire exists today; this is contingency planning rather than active deployment.

The Freyja announcement comes within a longer diplomatic architecture. The "Coalition of the Willing" format, which started at a Paris meeting in September 2025, has produced multiple declarations, including a January 2026 "Paris Declaration on robust security guarantees" agreed among coalition members, Ukraine, and the United States President of Ukraine, Jan. 6. France's foreign minister Jean-Noël Barrot had flagged the ballistic-missile threat in a France Info interview on June 19, 2026 Diplomatie. France, the UK, and Germany had separately condemned large-scale Russian drone and missile barrages on Ukraine, including use of the Oreshnik intermediate-range system, in a joint statement earlier in 2026 French MFA UK.

The diplomatic effort around Ukraine extends beyond this European coalition. Zelenskyy attended the G7 Evian Summit alongside G7 leaders from June 15-17, 2026 French MFA. At Australia-UK ministerial talks that month, officials noted that joint defence initiatives with Australia are supplying Ukraine with advanced weapons systems UK Government, AUKMIN. France and Poland held their first nuclear-related meeting on July 10, 2026 Élysée, a separate but related data point.

These developments speak to a deeper strategic interest. Freyja represents an attempt by a bloc of European states to reduce dependence on continued US supply of Patriot interceptors and their PAC-3 munitions, whose availability has been constrained by American production capacity and competing demands elsewhere. The joint statement's careful language about complementing "existing" and "to be acquired" systems hints that planners themselves are uncertain whether a wholly new interceptor architecture can mature quickly enough to matter for the current conflict. The Rafale and SCALP arrangements, by contrast, carry concrete timelines: fighter delivery in 2028-2029, and domestic missile production with no specified end date. These tracks now run alongside contingency planning for a post-ceasefire multinational force, signalling that European capitals are simultaneously preparing to sustain a war that continues while rehearsing for a peace that has not yet arrived.