Romania seeks Ukraine drone production partnership through SAFE framework
Romania is seeking to cooperate with Ukraine in the production of drones under a new European Union defense financing mechanism, Reuters reported on Friday, citing government sources.
According to the agency, Romania shares a 650-kilometer land border with Ukraine and has had more than 20 violations of its airspace by unmanned aerial vehicles and debris falling on its territory over the past two years, since the beginning of Russian attacks on Ukrainian ports on the Danube.
"We need more air defense assets, which no one has," said a Romanian government defense official. "Until then, defense will be asymmetric, with huge air defense costs that can only be covered at the NATO level," he added.
The source said Romania was in talks with Ukraine, whose drone technology has been “battle-tested on a large scale,” to produce drones under a project to be financed by the EU’s SAFE rearmament initiative.
Romania will have EUR 16.6 billion at its disposal under the SAFE program, which Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan said would provide military procurement worth about 1% of GDP annually for five years.
Romania’s air defenses currently include F-16 fighters, Patriot systems, Lockheed Martin’s HIMARS missile launchers, South Korean Chiron short-range surface-to-air missiles, and German Gepard self-propelled anti-aircraft guns. The latter two systems are currently Romania’s most cost-effective option for drone defense.
Gepard self-propelled anti-aircraft guns are deployed near settlements located near the Ukrainian border, but the cost of covering the entire border and maintaining these systems will be too high.
As reported, on September 24, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Oleksandr Syrsky, had a telephone conversation with the Chief of the Defense Staff of the Romanian Armed Forces, Gheorghiță Vlad, during which they discussed, in particular, joint counteraction to threats associated with the crossing of the Ukrainian-Romanian border by air attack means of the Russian aggressor.