France will license Ukraine to build Aster missiles. President Emmanuel Macron announced the license at a joint briefing with Zelenskyy, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer after the Coalition of the Willing meeting in Paris.
He also confirmed Ukraine will acquire Rafale fighter jets.
"The first aircraft should already be flying in Ukrainian skies in 2028-2029," Macron said.
The Aster license is the more immediately consequential of the two announcements. Aster missiles arm the SAMP/T system, which Ukraine already operates and which has already shot down a Russian Sukhoi jet in combat.
SAMP/T is the European system closest to the Patriot in role, as it can engage aerodynamic targets out to 150 km and intercept ballistic missiles at 25 km.
Aster plans to expand to 300 missiles per one year
It is built by the EuroSAM consortium of MBDA France, MBDA Italy, and Thales, which means the license does not run through an American supply chain. The bottleneck has always been production: Aster output runs at roughly 80-100 missiles per year, with a plan to reach 300 per year by 2028.
The announcement comes six days after Trump promised Ukraine a Patriot production license at the NATO summit in Ankara — a promise Lockheed Martin and RTX had not been told about, with no timeline and no named manufacturer. Macron welcomed Trump's decision at the Paris briefing.
Zelenskyy thanked Macron directly.
"Thank you, Emmanuel, personally, for the readiness to grant licenses. This is a serious step forward. This will help a great deal. Licenses for Asters and SCALPs are important decisions," he said.
Rafales arrive in 2028, at earliest
Macron said the meeting demonstrated accelerated fulfillment of commitments made in recent months and named two areas of concrete progress: air defense assistance and the modernization and acquisition of Rafale strike aircraft by Ukraine.
Ukraine locked in a commitment to 100 French Rafales in February 2026, alongside 150 Swedish Gripen aircraft. Macron's 2028-2029 date is the first specific delivery window a French leader has attached to that commitment. It is also a reminder of what the aircraft cannot do: nothing about the Rafale addresses the ballistic missiles hitting Kyiv this month.
License lands the same week as the FREYJA coalition convenes
"We also decided to grant licenses for our missiles, and to create opportunities to draw on our forces and expertise to develop new anti-ballistic capabilities, and it is exactly in this vein that the flagship FREYJA project is working, which many manufacturers will join," Macron said.
The Anti-Ballistic Coalition held its first meeting this week, with ten countries — Ukraine, France, Britain, Germany, Italy, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Spain — plus NATO, the EU, and European defense companies.
Zelenskyy said Ukraine is finishing work on its own anti-ballistic missile as its contribution to the system and hopes to see FREYJA operating within 12 months.
Zelenskyy thanked Britain and Germany for what he called consistently tangible steps to protect life in Ukraine, and said new defense pacts for Ukraine are coming.
