Ukraine will borrow from European Union funding sources to buy its first next-generation Franco-Italian SAMP/T-NG air defence systems and French Rafale fighter aircraft, it was announced on Tuesday, July 14th.
In a move first suggested in November 2025, Kyiv is now scheduled to order an initial 16 Rafale aircraft. This is the first tranche of a planned fleet of 100, financed using the EU’s Ukraine Support Loan programme.
Ukrainian pilots and mechanics could be trained in France later this year, prior to the delivery of the first four aircraft.
Kyiv also secured approval—in the form of a licensing agreement—to produce key Western missiles domestically. This is the second such ‘gain’ for President Volodymyr Zelensky this month, with U.S. president Donald Trump announcing on July 12th that he will be licensing domestic production of Patriot air defense systems on Ukrainian soil (or equivalent).
It is almost a year to the day since Trump promised to supply Ukraine with the actual missiles, but this has yet to materialise.
After observing recent Russian missile-led military offensives, several European members of the ‘Coalition of the Willing’ propose developing a lower-cost anti-ballistic missile capability of their own.
