The New Defense Post #20

Welcome back to the 20th edition of The New Defense Post!

In this edition, we’ll cover:

Once you look closely at Rubikon, the question is no longer whether Russia understands drone warfare, but whether Europe is willing to study how it is being operationalised under real battlefield pressure.

New defense startups take note: Rubikon is not about breakthrough technology or elegant design; it is about speed, scale, feedback, and ruthless implementation in combat conditions.

This article from guest writers German Stelmakh and Artem Melnychuk breaks down how Russia’s state-engineered drone elite is reshaping the fight in Ukraine—and what uncomfortable lessons this holds for Europe’s defense ecosystem.

If innovation cannot survive friction, countermeasures, and adaptation, it does not matter. The battlefield will decide.

Read the full interview on The New Defense Post

🗣 Bertrand Rondepierre, Director of AMIAD: “By integrating the most advanced solutions from Mistral AI, we consolidate our position and prepare the armed forces for future challenges.” (Reuters)

📰 Our Take: This is a particularly interesting deal and one that should be closely watched by other Europe-based generative AI companies. Access to generative AI is driven by both efficiency gains and an overall increase in operational effectiveness. However, given the United States’ poor track record of respecting allies’ data privacy, sovereign-hosted systems are often the safer choice.

This could prove to be an interesting path for European AI providers to shield themselves from U.S. competitors and scale without major external disruptions. Defense is inherently protectionist, so this time around, EU players may stand a chance against Big Tech to enter the AI defense market at scale.

🗣 UK MoD spokesperson: “Laser weapon technology offers significant potential across a wide range of defense and civil applications. We are actively exploring opportunities, particularly in counter-drone systems.”

📰 Our Take: This is Europe’s cost-exchange problem finally being addressed with intent. Counter-drone and counter-swarm defense is economically brutal if you rely on expensive interceptors, and lasers flip that equation if you can manage power, tracking, and weather limitations.

The answer is probably not just lasers (given the UK’s notorious weather), but a combination of systems: high-energy weapons, interceptor drones, jamming, and low-cost anti-aircraft missiles.

📰 Our Take: This is a meaningful structural shift for European defense tech because it expands the “pipes” through which public money can reach companies, including via regional and cohesion funding, not only defense-specific instruments.

For startups, the opportunity is twofold: more calls that explicitly include defence tech, and more pathways for dual-use projects to qualify under STEP, especially where they strengthen EU supply chains and reduce dependencies.

Overall, it is clear that shifting priorities are allowing EU funds to flow into Europe’s defense; the hope is that they will reach defense tech startups.

Babcock signed an MoU with Frankenburg Technologies to explore a maritime counter-drone air defense system, explicitly framed as an affordable response to the rise of one-way attack drones. (Babcock)

Exail signed two contracts for its DriX H-9 autonomous surface drone, including one that adds counter-drone capabilities (detect/track/neutralise aerial UAS) for an undisclosed navy’s innovation arm. (The Defense Post)

Drone interceptors are quickly becoming the “missing middle” of European air defense: a way to kill cheap one-way attack drones without burning through million-euro missiles or relying solely on jamming.

In the end, it comes down to simple economics. Shahed-type drones can be significantly cheaper than the traditional interceptors used against them, forcing MoDs to seek low-cost, mass-produced interceptors that can scale. (Reuters)

A new wave of European companies is responding with purpose-built interceptors, either hit-to-kill drones (ram/near-burst) or miniature missiles designed for high production rates.

For example, in early January, Babcock and Estonia’s Frankenburg Technologies announced plans around a maritime counter-drone system, with Frankenburg pitching interceptor munitions intended to be dramatically cheaper and faster to manufacture than traditional air-defense rounds. (Frankenburg)

At the “system-of-systems” level, primes are trying to make interceptors plug-and-play. MBDA’s Sky Warden is positioned as an end-to-end counter-UAS architecture that can mix sensors and effectors, including MBDA’s own hit-to-kill interceptor concept and more traditional options like Mistral, so operators can pick the cheapest tool that still works for a given threat. (MBDA)

Ukraine’s battlefield is accelerating the learning curve (and shaping Europe’s demand). Reporting from late 2025 describes Ukraine deploying very low-cost interceptor drones, some in the $1,000 class, as a fundamental layer in front of higher-end air defense, and ramping production toward ~1,000 interceptor drones per day to cope with large-scale Shahed-style attacks. (Business Insider)

But interceptor drones have real constraints. They still need detection and tracking (radar, EO/IR, acoustic) that works in clutter; they face EW and comms challenges; and they must be safe to use over cities and infrastructure, pushing some teams toward non-explosive approaches like net capture for certain domestic/security settings.

Also, when it comes to law enforcement counter-drone operations in peacetime over inhabited areas, avoiding explosives becomes a necessity.

The direction of travel is clear: Europe is moving toward layered, cost-aware air defense, where interceptors, whether drones or mini-missiles, become high-volume consumables. Of course, other threats, such as hypersonic missiles, require the opposite approach, with exquisite countermeasures. But Ukraine has taught us that these are the exception, not the norm.

The demand for drone interceptors won’t just be military: airports, ports, energy sites, and major events will want the same affordable “drone kill” layer that doesn’t require wartime missile budgets.