The Minister of Defense of Ukraine Mykhailo Fedorov and his counterpart, the Minister of Defense of the Netherlands Ruben Brekelmans, held a conversation on further strengthening defense cooperation in order to support the Defense Forces of Ukraine.
The parties plan to increase cooperation in a number of areas, such as: strengthening air defense; drone development and production; strengthening aviation capabilities.
Read more: Netherlands Sends Patriot Air Defense Systems to Shield Ukraine's Main Support Hub in Poland
The corresponding statment was published by the press office of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.
In general, it is said that the Netherlands will continue and strengthen support for Ukraine in key areas - the purchase of critically important weapons: ammunition for F-16, in particular supply of AIM air-to-air missiles, as well as PAC-3 MSE missiles for the Patriot SAM system; expand drone production within the framework of the Build with Ukraine initiative, when Ukrainian UAVs are manufactured directly in the Netherlands.
Mykhailo Fedorov noted that the issues of localization and acceleration of repair of radars manufactured by the Dutch company Robin Radar Systems were discussed. The supply of these radars first became known in August 2024.
This is the IRIS Drone Radar, which is designed specifically for drone detection, and is notable for its ability to be mounted on mobile platforms – a key requirement from the Ukrainian side based on the experience with previous models lacking this capability. At that time, a contract was signed for the supply of 51 IRIS Drone Radar.
In June 2025, as part of the next defense assistance package, the Netherlands announced plans to purchase another 100 such radars for Ukraine, which were to be delivered by the end of the year and should already be in service with the Ukrainian Defense Forces.
IRIS Drone Radar has a 360-degree field of view, an elevation angle of 60 degrees, and a range of 5 km. The radar detects drones flying at speeds up to 100 km/h.
The parties also discussed another important issue - "providing Ruta cruise missiles". Details about this are not reported for obvious reasons, but it is quite likely that the possibility of increasing the supply of this weapon was discussed, which would mean increasing the capabilities of the Ukrainian Defense Forces to strike military facilities directly on russian territory.
Recall that Ruta is a cruise missile developed and manufactured by Destinus, which has been supplied to the Ukrainian Defense Forces since 2024. Based on the results of operation, the Ruta Block 2 cruise missile was recently presented which differs fundamentally from the previous version, featuring a significantly more powerful warhead, extended range, and the integration of combat artificial intelligence. It is possible that this particular version of the missile was the subject of discussion between the defense ministers of Ukraine and the Netherlands.
Defense Express reported earlier, that the Ruta cruise missiles supplied to Ukraine received combat artificial intelligence by Shield AI from the USA.
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