According to Dutch Defense Minister Ruben Brekelmans, the Netherlands has allocated 200 million euros to strengthen Ukraine's anti-drone capabilities.
“We are going to spend it on counter-drone systems that can shoot down drones in Ukraine, we saw the urgent need for this again last night,” Brekelmans said during a telephone interview from Ukraine. “There have been major airstrikes here overnight, which have had a significant impact because they largely targeted local energy infrastructure.”
Ukraine is working to strengthen its air defenses as Russia intensifies drone attacks across the country. With winter approaching, Moscow's forces are targeting key energy infrastructure, including a strike earlier this week that crippled more than half of Ukraine's gas production.
The anti-drone support is part of a defense deal that Ukraine has signed with the Dutch that also includes a memorandum of understanding on the co-production of drones, which President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called “one of the promising areas of our bilateral cooperation” in a post on X.
“Dutch and Ukrainian companies can increase production together, for example by setting up joint ventures,” says Brekelmans. Although the intention is to initially produce jointly in the Netherlands for Ukraine, the same production lines could also be used for the Dutch armed forces in the future, given the urgency.
Ukraine has a similar arrangement with Denmark, which has set up a co-production facility that currently serves Ukrainian needs but could later be deployed to supply Danish armed forces. Britain announced its own drone co-production deal earlier Friday, called project 'Octopus'.
Brekelmans sees numerous advantages in such investments in drone technology, because “the Netherlands naturally learns more about these systems in this way and establishes contacts with the developers and manufacturers.” He called it a necessity as “the entire NATO Alliance will need more” of these counter-drone systems in the coming years.
“It is a way to bring the lessons from Ukraine to the Netherlands.” he added.
This article was generated from an automated feed from a news agency without any changes to the text.
