Signal No. 164 · MGCS: the tank goes national, the programme stays
France's chief of defence staff said Germany has quit the MGCS tank; the two defence ministers said the programme continues, and the French ministry dates service entry to the late 2040s.
DINGRDDEZ France's chief of defence staff: Germany has "decided to quit" the MGCS tank; ministers say the programme continues; the ministry dates it to the late 2040s
Zone Militaire 9 Oct · Reuters via Zonebourse 8 Oct · dpa-AFX via onvista 9 Oct · AFP via franceinfo 9 Oct · hartpunkt 11 Mar · Truppendienst 16 Mar · Signal Nos. 82, 87, 94, 105, 158 and 159
General Fabien Mandon, France's chief of defence staff, told the National Assembly's defence committee on Thursday afternoon that Germany had "decided to quit the project" of the future tank under the Main Ground Combat System, the Franco-German programme announced in 2017 to replace the Leopard 2 and the Leclerc. "This is not a complete failure, it is an important German choice," he said; the firepower of a tank, he said, remained relevant, and since the Leclerc's phased withdrawal begins in 2038, "we must launch the studies to be ready for that date". The armed forces ministry said afterwards that the industrial offer submitted in early 2026 was incompatible with replacing the current tanks by 2037, and the German side had chosen to launch a national study to replace the Leopard 2; with the programme's service entry "shifted towards the end of the 2040s", France had likewise chosen to launch an intermediate capability built on current technology and able to take the programme's innovations incrementally. The programme itself, the ministry said, remains of major interest, "refocused on the development of enhanced connectivity, collaborative combat, automation and robotics".
On Friday Boris Pistorius and Catherine Vautrin, at Le Haillan near Bordeaux, spoke about the programme together. "The MGCS project is not ended, it is not dead, it has been ended by nobody, quite the opposite, it is a core project of German-French cooperation in land systems," Pistorius said, calling it "completely unendangered"; Vautrin said it remained a current project. Neither minister said whether there will be a common tank, as planned, or a networking of a German and a French tank inside one combat system, the two readings dpa set out. The Brühl council of ministers of 17 July had already reduced the programme to a research effort on collaborative combat carried to a feasibility demonstration, adaptable to tracked vehicles with or without crew; the common chassis was dropped then. dpa puts the programme's estimated volume at about EUR 100 billion; the project company formed under the April 2024 phase-1A agreement is owned in equal shares by KNDS France, Thales, KNDS Deutschland and Rheinmetall.
The two national tanks are both in studies. Germany's next-generation tank, to be bought through PSM, the KNDS Deutschland–Rheinmetall joint venture named in December 2025, has an initial requirement of about 100 vehicles and service entry in the early 2030s; configuration and quantity are to be decided once the procurement office's studies report. France's intermediate capability, which KNDS showed at Eurosatory in June as CAPINT, sits in upstream studies in the 2027 budget, with a EUR 167 million land-innovation envelope going mainly to its technologies.
Signal › What splits is the gun, not the hull. Both national tanks descend from the Leopard 2: Germany's next tank takes Rheinmetall's 130 mm; France's CAPINT, on a 2A8-derived hull, takes KNDS France's ASCALON (No. 82). KNDS builds the hull on both sides and the gun on one, and the two states are set to co-own it: Berlin agreed in June to buy in on parity terms with Paris (No. 87), a purchase tied to a listing postponed since July (No. 94). A document will settle whether Mandon's account or the ministers' holds: a phase-2 contract to the project company would be a programme; a research award would confirm what Brühl wrote in July.
RUCDIPATL Miami: the Commission and NATO join the E3 advisers at Ukraine's talks with Witkoff and Kushner; the US proposes a partial ceasefire on energy and grain
Kyiv Post 9 Oct · Euronews 9 Oct · Kyiv Independent 9 Oct, Seibert · European Pravda 9 Oct · Kyiv Independent 9 Oct, energy truce · Kyiv Independent 8 Oct · Reuters via Kathmandu Post 9 Oct · Ukrainska Pravda 8 Oct · Kyiv Independent 9 Oct, past day · Signal Nos. 140, 146, 160 and 163
Ukraine's delegation meets Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in Miami on Friday and Saturday: Kyrylo Budanov, head of the presidential office; Rustem Umerov, head of the Foreign Intelligence Service; Davyd Arakhamia, the ruling faction's leader in parliament; Serhiy Kyslytsya, first deputy head of the presidential office; and Oleh Ivashchenko, head of military intelligence. Scott Bessent, the treasury secretary, and Mike Needham, the deputy national security adviser, sat in when the envoys briefed Donald Trump on Thursday; whether they travel to Miami is not stated. Europe is represented by the national security advisers of Britain, France and Germany; the Commission by Björn Seibert, Ursula von der Leyen's chief of staff; NATO by its chief of staff, Geoffrey van Leeuwen; no readout had been published by this edition's stamp. Zelenskyy had said on Thursday that Kyiv was "counting on a European team to join our negotiating group and the American negotiating group". The proposal on the table is a partial ceasefire on energy infrastructure and grain shipments, with security guarantees and reconstruction beside it; Kyiv is open to it, Moscow has not been. The envoys may go to Moscow later in October.
Russia's terms for an energy truce are reported by the Kyiv Independent, citing US and Ukrainian officials and a European diplomat: Kirill Dmitriev, on two visits to Witkoff and Kushner in September, asked for sanctions relief as part of any energy ceasefire, for it to be tied to a separate ceasefire in the Black Sea, and possibly for the release of frozen Russian funds. Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, said Kyiv was proposing not a long-term settlement but "a ceasefire in an area that is its Achilles' heel, the energy sector". Kyiv's position, according to the same reporting, is that any ceasefire must be reciprocal and bring Moscow no economic benefit.
Zelenskyy, in Pryluky on Thursday after the Kramatorsk bus strike, put the two-day toll of Russian strikes at 78 dead and 215 wounded and answered Rubio's stalemate remark with "that's called unwillingness"; he asked for wider Starlink access to target Russian launchers and said he knew a lot about the US–Russia economic talks but was "simply not ready to talk about it publicly". By Friday the Donetsk governor counted 32 dead in Kramatorsk.
Signal › Two things on the record are new. The Commission and NATO now sit beside the three national security advisers, who had joined one of the envoys' rounds in Kyiv in September (No. 140). And Moscow's price, sanctions relief since September (No. 146), now carries a Black Sea linkage, which would put the shipping lane into the same bargain as the grid. EU sanctions are lifted by the Council, not in Miami. The three-way meeting proposed for late October still has no date (No. 160), and Moscow said on Wednesday none is planned in that format (No. 163). The next marker is a readout that names who sat at the table and what each was asked to do.
AIRATL Greece agrees up to USD 4 billion of US purchases after Rubio's visit: 37 more F-16s to Viper and munitions for three fleets
Reuters via ThePrint 8 Oct · Zone Militaire 8 Oct
Greece has agreed to spend up to USD 4 billion on US equipment, two senior Greek sources told Reuters on Thursday, the day after Marco Rubio's visit to Athens for the sixth US–Greece Strategic Dialogue, whose joint statement cited a military sales programme of USD 4 billion. A defence ministry official told the agency: "The agreement includes new advanced missiles and bombs for the F-16 Viper, the F-35 fighter jets, and the Black Hawk helicopters. Also the upgrade of old F-16 fighter jets to Viper version." Greece is already converting about 82 F-16s to the Viper standard and wants 37 Block 50 aircraft added for about USD 1 billion; the USD 4 billion, the official said, is spread over several years inside the multi-year plan, which runs to EUR 28 billion through 2036 and already carries 20 F-35s and 35 UH-60M Black Hawks ordered in 2024.
Greek press reports the request in more detail: a letter of interest for six munition types worth about EUR 1.2 billion, among them the AIM-260 JATM air-to-air missile, the AIM-120D3, the AGM-158B JASSM-ER cruise missile, Harpoon, AIM-9X and the SDB II glide bomb; the 37-aircraft upgrade to be complete by the end of 2027, giving 120 Vipers beside 32 older Block 30s with EUR 800 million of support; and EUR 750 million of support for the MH-60 and Black Hawk fleets.
Signal › The rationale given in Athens is Türkiye's planned 20 Eurofighters with the Meteor missile, and the list carries the AIM-260, the US long-range air-to-air missile. Until the Defense Security Cooperation Agency notifies Congress, the munitions list rests on Greek press reports; the first notification will show which of the six were accepted. Nothing on Thursday's record is a signed letter of offer.
Procurement · Industry · Capability
INTMDF NATO: Steadfast Noon begins Tuesday in Italy with 17 nations; "we have not postponed", eight days after Russia's Kaliningrad non-paper
NATO announced on Thursday that its annual nuclear exercise begins on Tuesday 13 October, hosted by Italy, with 17 nations, a scale in line with previous years and no live weapons; the alliance called it "a long-planned, routine training activity" that "is not linked to current world events and is not directed against any country". It runs ten days with dozens of aircraft, by the Associated Press's account. Nassima Barrows, NATO's head of nuclear policy: "We have not postponed"; of Russia, "we have not observed any big changes to its posture that would cause us alarm". A Russian non-paper to NATO, reported on 30 September, said Russia would be ready to use "the entire arsenal of forces and capabilities at its disposal, including nuclear weapons" if the alliance tried to isolate Kaliningrad, and its embassies named NATO exercises, Gallant Boar 2026 among them, as the provocation.
DEZSEAIAMD F127: trade reporting puts eight ships in the original configuration "off the table"; fewer hulls or a reduced fit are the options described
Trade reporting citing people familiar with the programme says that buying all eight F127 air-defence frigates in their original configuration is no longer being pursued, under what they call very high cost pressure, and that two paths are being weighed: fewer ships at full specification, or eight with a smaller radar, magazine or endurance. A per-ship figure of about EUR 5 billion circulating in the press, the EUR 40 billion programme figure of late August divided by eight, is disputed by TKMS as too high. The programme's cost runs to tens of billions on the MEKO A-400 AMD design with SPY-6 radar and Aegis for ballistic missile defence, 96 Mk 41 cells per hull under the April FMS clearance and a first ship in 2034 at the earliest. No official statement accompanies the report.
AIRRUC Rafale for Ukraine: pilot training starts in November; Mandon says the aircraft will be new-build, none drawn from French squadrons
At the same 8 October hearing Catherine Vautrin said training of Ukrainian Rafale pilots begins in November, and Mandon said the discussion is about Ukraine buying the aircraft: "It is not at all a question of transferring Rafales from French squadrons to Ukraine"; the aircraft would be newly built, which takes three years or more. The joint declaration published on 14 July spoke of a possible order of sixteen Rafales, financed from the 2026 and 2027 tranches of the EU's Ukraine Support Loan; by the account given in Paris, four would be operational in 2028 once training is complete.
DPLINT Italy: the Commission clears the national escape clause for defence and energy, six months after Meloni ruled it out; the Council has a month
The Commission approved on Thursday Italy's request to activate the national escape clause of the fiscal rules for defence and energy spending, filed in September; Balazs Ujvari, the Commission's spokesman, said the activation "does not jeopardise the sustainability of public finances". In April Giorgia Meloni had ruled the clause out: "Today we have other priorities. I have the priority of energy costs." The file goes to the Council, which has one month. The clause lets a member state deviate from its expenditure path for the additional spending through 2028.
CEEGRD Estonia opens a EUR 195 million framework tender for 23 mm, 40 mm and 76 mm ammunition and weapons; bids by 13 November
The Centre for Defence Investments published a five-lot tender: three ammunition lots worth EUR 145 million for 76 mm, 40 mm and 23 mm rounds, blank, training and live, and two weapons lots worth EUR 50 million for 40 mm and 23 mm systems, each as a seven-year framework with components, training and life-cycle support. Products must be made in an EU or NATO state and be in service with EU or NATO forces; up to 30 per cent may be paid in advance in justified cases. Bids close on 13 November.
Forward Look
This weekend: Saturday 10 October: the second day of the Miami talks.
Next week: Monday 12 October: Grynkewich presents NATO's eastern-flank plan in Poland; the Foreign Affairs Council adopts the 1,646 listings in Luxembourg; the EU negotiating position on clusters 2 and 3 is due, if the Rada has passed the minority-language amendments. Tuesday 13 October: Steadfast Noon begins in Italy, ten days; a possible Ukraine–EU intergovernmental conference. Wednesday 14 October: Rutte in Estonia, with Ämari on the programme. Thursday–Friday 15–16 October: the European Council. Friday 16 October: the Lithuanian border deployment ends unless extended.
Further out: October: Francken's decision on Belgium's anti-submarine frigates; Bulgaria's IRIS-T contract; the Bundestag's vote on the Aspides extension before the mandate ends on 31 October; a possible Witkoff–Kushner visit to Moscow. Thursday 29 October: the Duma's first reading of Russia's budget. Friday 6 November: the posture review's option sets reach Hegseth. By about 8 November: the Council's decision on Italy's escape clause. Thursday 12 November: the budget committee's final session on the 2027 budget. December: the Swedish Patriot unit at Rzeszów. Tuesday 12 January 2027: the Seimas's final vote on Article 137.
Watch: the procurement office's next-generation tank studies and the configuration decision; the Hanning case, where Der Spiegel has reported contact with an Azerbaijani agent and, as of Thursday, years of contact with a retired Chinese major general, and the federal prosecutor still names no state; Bulgaria's investigation of the Black Sea sinkings, after inspectors found no drone debris on the Able on Friday and Sofia still names no attacker; Moscow's reply to Steadfast Noon, and whether it names the exercise as its embassies named Gallant Boar; the IRINI extension, listed for adoption without discussion at Friday's Council of finance ministers (list of A items, 8 October), for which no release had been published by the stamp.
