UK expands air defenses as Europe wakes up to missile gap

Ellen Milligan, Bloomberg News on Aug 21, 2025

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The U.K. is bolstering its air defense capabilities with a new contract for missile systems, as European military planners work to map out a post-peace plan for Ukraine that could see its skies protected by western allies.

In a deal worth £118 million ($159 million), the British government will buy six new Land Ceptor systems from multinational European arms maker MBDA over three years, the Ministry of Defense said Thursday in a statement. They comprise so-called anti-air modular missiles capable of hitting a tennis-ball sized object traveling at twice the speed of sound, as well as launchers and support vehicles.

The new contract comes as European and U.S. defense chiefs meet to discuss what security guarantees they can offer Ukraine if a peace deal is reached with its Russian invaders. Air defense is seen as a key component under the Coalition of the Willing, a group of nations led by the U.K. and France that’s prepared to station troops and military systems away from the front line in Ukraine under a deal that they hope would combine with a U.S. backstop contributing intelligence sharing, border surveillance, weaponry and possibly air defense.

While U.S. President Donald Trump has ruled out putting U.S. troops into Ukraine, he told Fox News earlier this week that he’s open to discussing deploying U.S. air defense systems, which can counter advanced threats such as long-range ballistic missiles. “There’s nobody that has the kind of stuff we have,” Trump said.

The new missiles for the British Army will form part of the U.K.’s Sky Sabre defense system, which was deployed on NATO’s eastern flank in southeast Poland from 2022 to 2024 to help facilitate the delivery of military equipment to Ukraine and ensure the safe movement of Ukrainian recruits in training.

It’s used to counter various aerial threats, including fighter aircraft, drones and cruise missiles and can be deployed anywhere in the world. The U.K.’s MoD said the system can simultaneously guide 24 missiles to intercept separate targets.

“Doubling our deployable Sky Sabre capability will strengthen the UK’s air defenses, protect UK forces abroad, and deter our adversaries,”Armed Forces Minister Luke Pollard said in the statement.

(Gerry Doyle contributed to this report.)