Signal No. 144 · The second EUR 6.1 billion

The Commission approved on Friday an additional EUR 6.1 billion for Ukraine under the EUR 90 billion Ukraine Support Loan, for air and missile defence, ammunition, drones and electronic warfare. It is the second approval of that size: on 24 August the Commission approved EUR 6.1 billion for air and missile defence systems, missiles, ammunition and radars, on top of EUR 16 billion of plans already approved. With Friday's decision, the Commission says, the EUR 28.3 billion set aside for Ukraine's defence in 2026 "has now been fully allocated, defining precise equipment procurements, selected suppliers, required quantities and implementation timelines". EUR 8.35 billion of defence funding has been disbursed this year. Before releasing funds, the Commission reviews the contracts against the loan's conditions and the procurement terms agreed with member states.

The package carries five derogations from what the Commission calls the loan's "standard eligibility conditions": three for Ukrainian-made drones and components above cost thresholds, and two for US-made equipment, "in particular PAC-3 missiles, including via the NATO-coordinated PURL mechanism". The condition waived is the loan's European-content rule, a 35 per cent ceiling on third-country components per the Kyiv Independent; Euronews calls it the "Made in Europe" requirement. PURL is the NATO list through which allies pay for US-made equipment from American stock or production. Member states agreed the derogations on Monday.

Ursula von der Leyen said Ukraine "can now also purchase the Patriot equipment it needs". At the press conference in Brussels, Kubilius said the decision "officially enables Ukraine to procure PAC-3 missiles for Patriots", and that the question now is whether member states that hold PAC-3 stocks can transfer rounds to Ukraine now and take replacements under Ukraine's 2027 agreements; Euronews reports the Commission pressing member states to do so. Euronews puts the PAC-3 manufacturing lead time at 24 months and the unit price at about USD 4 million. No member state announced a transfer on Friday, and the Commission's text names no quantity.

Ukraine's defence minister, Yevhen Khmara, told the Contact Group on Tuesday that Ukraine is contracting about 1,000 Patriot missiles for delivery over years and asked for 300 from stocks now, offering those contracts as repayment, and von der Leyen wrote then that "the next disbursement of 3.2 billion euros" would go to air defence. Friday's text does not carry the EUR 3.2 billion figure. The same morning, Ukrainian and EU companies held the first meeting of the EU–Ukraine Drone Alliance in Brussels; Kubilius set six priorities, among them joint ventures and prototype testing.

hartpunkt reports, from SRF's account of 4 September, that Germany will in all likelihood receive the two Patriot fire units originally destined for Switzerland, apparently to replace the two it handed to Ukraine, on top of the eight new units a ministry spokesman said in January were on order. Whether a contract has been concluded is not clear from the statements; delivery to the Bundeswehr could begin in 2027, and hartpunkt's observers do not exclude a submission to the Bundestag's budget committee under the EUR 25 million approval threshold by year-end. Urs Loher, head of armasuisse, told SRF that talks with Germany on a Swiss share had failed and that Germany chose the fastest way to replace the systems it gave away. The Swiss first unit's slip to 2032 was already on record in June; Loher now puts Switzerland's extra cost at CHF 1.7 to 4.3 billion on what hartpunkt gives as a CHF 1.987 billion contract. armasuisse is examining French, Israeli and South Korean systems under Bodluv GR 2 as an addition to Patriot, the process No. 89 recorded opening in June. hartpunkt gives no delivery date for the eight ordered units.

On the last day of MSPO in Kielce, Brigadier General Michał Marciniak, deputy head of the Armaments Agency, and Renata Gruszczyńska, chief executive of Mesko, signed executive contract no. 1 under the framework of 24 August, concluded for a consortium formed under the EU's EDIRPA common-procurement instrument: several thousand Piorun missiles and launch mechanisms for the Polish armed forces, with a training and logistics package, for about PLN 3 billion net, roughly EUR 700 million, delivered 2026–30 and financed from the SAFE loan. The Agency treats the missile count as classified. Donald Tusk and Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz attended. The Agency describes it as its first executive contract under SAFE's common-procurement procedure, the track that requires at least one partner state; by 30 May Poland had signed 50 contracts and 12 annexes for about PLN 120 billion net on the single-procurement track, without partners.

Further executive contracts on behalf of Norway, Lithuania and Latvia are to be concluded by the Agency until the framework's more than PLN 8 billion is used up, and the accession of further states, among them the Netherlands, is being processed. On Thursday Magdalena Sobkowiak-Czarnecka, the deputy defence minister, said Poland has contracted more than PLN 120 billion from SAFE, 94 per cent to domestic industry, and will use "every euro" declared; other member states signal they will not spend their full allocations, and the October report to the Commission will show how much returns to the common pool, when Poland can first ask for more. She gave Italy as the example: about EUR 14 billion planned, then withdrawn, now back in talks. A second instrument, she said, cannot start before 2030.

Aerospacelab, the Belgian manufacturer founded in 2018, says it has been contracted as a main contractor for the low-orbit segment of IRIS², the EU's secure-connectivity constellation, to build 264 satellite platforms and deliver the integrated satellites, launching from 2030, for EUR 2.4 billion. Production is to run at its 20,000-square-metre Charleroi plant, due to start within months with a capacity of up to 500 satellites a year in the 150-kilogram to one-tonne class. Airbus Defence and Space says it signed the initial contract for the first tranche of the sovereign constellation, at least 66 satellites for delivery in 2029, with Eutelsat, which leads the low-orbit segment inside the SpaceRISE consortium; Airbus builds the platforms in Toulouse and integrates payloads from Thales Alenia Space. Airbus did not disclose its share; ESUT gives an estimate of EUR 1.8 billion for the 66 satellites, which Airbus has not confirmed. The signatures took place at the International Space Summit in Paris on 9 and 10 September.

The constellation is 348 satellites: 330 in low orbit and 18 in medium orbit, the latter contracted to OHB for about EUR 1 billion on 31 August, as No. 135 carried. The 66-satellite tranche is the military layer added this year, which ESUT says raises protected government capacity within the EU by 60 per cent. The implementation agreements reported in August already assigned Aerospacelab up to 264 low-orbit satellites and Airbus the 66; what changed this week is the instrument, from allocation to contract, with values and delivery years attached.

Martin Herem, the former defence forces commander proposed for the ministry, told ERR that the war in Ukraine could end within six months and that Russia would then need no more than six months to stockpile what it now expends: "So, a year from now, Russia could use a military force of size 'X' against us. Are our preparations matching that?" He said he is not confirming a one-year time-frame and wants to talk to the intelligence agencies first, that Mark Rutte's three-years and the German and Danish six-months estimates are both nodded at and then left out of planning, and that the assessment "needs to be pinned down somehow" so that preparations can be dated against it. Hanno Pevkur, the outgoing minister, said the information behind any revised assessment must be objective and politically independent: "intelligence early warnings and the information that goes into them cannot be politically commissioned". He added that the National Audit Office's findings on the defence forces' stock accounting date from Herem's command and will be his to answer.

On Thursday the government dismissed Kaimo Kuusk as the ministry's permanent secretary on Pevkur's proposal, effective 15 September, after Herem made his departure a condition; Kuusk had written to staff on Tuesday that he would not resign. Pevkur said national defence "cannot remain hostage to mutual distrust between the minister and the permanent secretary"; Lauri Läänemets, the Social Democrats' chair, asked the Chancellor of Justice on Thursday to review the dismissal's legality.

Speaking to reporters in Canada on Thursday, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said: "I think we will not have truly substantive negotiations during Russia's election period. We understand this, but at the end of September we will have an opportunity to meet with the American team in New York." His advisers are in daily contact with the American side, he said, and first results by the end of September could concern grain exports and energy. The State Duma vote runs 18 to 20 September. On Friday morning Dmitry Peskov told Vesti that the Emirates "have repeatedly stated their readiness to host the talks", and that Russia assumes that readiness exists "if necessary". Neither side has given a date; there was still no White House account of Tuesday's Trump–Putin call by publication.

In Kyiv on Friday, a drone struck a petrol station in Obolon district; by 12:30 the city prosecutor counted two killed and 14 injured, including a rescue worker, from the morning and afternoon attacks, and Zelenskyy said a Kyivstar building was also hit. Overnight the air force counted 161 strike drones, including jet-powered Shaheds, plus one S8000 Banderol, with 138 downed or suppressed by 08:00 and hits at 19 locations. Ukraine's general staff said drones hit the Rosneft refinery at Saratov, about 4.8 million tonnes a year; satellite imagery published by RFE/RL showed an Ozon logistics hub there burned out, the seventh since 22 August on RFE/RL's count; Fire Point said its Flamingo missiles struck a US-sanctioned chemical plant in Volgograd, where the governor reported debris damage at an industrial site. Russia's defence ministry claimed 777 drones downed over 17 regions and the Black and Caspian seas. In Minsk, Alexander Lukashenko said readiness checks of the Belarusian army will continue "right up to mobilization", an artillery brigade now under inspection after tank and mechanised units.