Europe’s E5 Defense Ministers Back LEAP Program to Build Low-Cost Autonomous Drones Inspired by Ukraine

Europe’s five biggest military spenders are formalizing what Ukraine’s drone operators figured out the hard way: cheap autonomous systems beat expensive traditional ones. The UK, France, Germany, Italy, and Poland are expected to announce a new joint drone and missile development program as early as Friday, February 20, during a defense ministers’ meeting in Poland, according to a draft statement seen by Bloomberg. EU High Representative Kaja Kallas and NATO’s deputy secretary general are also expected to attend.

The initiative is called Low-Cost Effectors and Autonomous Platforms, or LEAP. Here’s what you need to know:

• The program: LEAP tasks the so-called European Group of Five (E5) with jointly developing autonomous drones and missiles for air defense, operating within the NATO framework.
• The lesson: The initiative draws directly from battlefield experience in Ukraine, where low-cost interceptor drones have proven more economical and scalable than expensive surface-to-air missiles against drone swarms.
• The scope: Military planners from all five nations will propose how the group can assume greater relevance within NATO, with commitments spanning multiple domains including space.
• The source: Bloomberg obtained a draft statement and spoke with people familiar with the talks, who cautioned the document could still change before Friday’s announcement.

The E5’s LEAP Initiative Codifies What Ukraine Already Proved

The LEAP program is Europe’s formal acknowledgment that the economics of air defense have fundamentally changed. Ukraine’s $2,500 interceptor drones destroying $35,000 Russian Shaheds proved that cheap, autonomous systems can neutralize expensive threats at a fraction of the cost of traditional missile-based air defense. Five of Europe’s largest defense spenders are now committing to develop exactly this kind of capability together, rather than each country pursuing its own expensive and redundant programs.

The timing matters. NATO members have been scrambling to absorb Ukrainian drone warfare doctrine since at least the Copenhagen European Political Community Summit in October 2025. What was once informal knowledge transfer is now moving toward a structured multinational development program with real defense budgets behind it.

The LEAP acronym tells you something about the intent. “Effectors” is military language for systems that create effects on a target — strikes, suppression, destruction. Pairing that with “Autonomous Platforms” signals that the E5 isn’t just looking to build cheaper missiles. They want drones that can operate with greater independence, an area where Ukraine’s interceptor drone program has led the world through pure battlefield necessity.

Ukraine’s Pay-Per-Kill Model Is the Blueprint LEAP Is Chasing

The LEAP announcement comes weeks after Ukraine’s Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov revealed a radically different approach to defense procurement: a pay-per-kill program that pays manufacturers $20,000 for every confirmed Shahed intercept. No lab demos. No glossy brochures. If it works over Chernihiv, it gets paid. That model produced more than 1,000 interceptor drones per day in operational deployment.

European defense ministries operate nothing like that. Traditional NATO procurement cycles take years to field systems that Ukrainian manufacturers iterate through in weeks under live fire. LEAP is promising to close that gap, but the mechanism matters enormously. A program run through traditional defense contractors will not produce the same results as one structured around rapid competition and battlefield validation.

The draft statement says the work will take place within the NATO framework, which is both reassuring and cautionary. Reassuring because it means allied interoperability is built in from day one. Cautionary because NATO procurement processes are not known for speed. The UK’s Project Octopus, producing 2,000 interceptor drones per month in partnership with Ukraine, shows what’s possible when countries bypass traditional procurement. Whether LEAP follows that model or defaults to established defense contractors will determine whether the program delivers real capability or expensive reports.

The E5 Format Signals a New European Defense Architecture

The “European Group of Five” framing is new. Meeting separately from the full EU or NATO structure — then pledging to work within NATO — suggests a coalition of the willing that can move faster than 32-nation consensus allows. The presence of Kaja Kallas, the EU’s top diplomat, alongside NATO’s deputy secretary general confirms this isn’t a side conversation. Both institutions want visibility into what the E5 builds.

Poland’s inclusion is strategically significant. As a frontline NATO state sharing a border with both Belarus and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, Poland has the most direct security interest in cheap, scalable air defense. Polish defense spending is running at approximately 4.7% of GDP in 2025 — the highest in NATO — with the 2026 budget targeting 4.8%. Having Warsaw in the E5 core means LEAP has a member state with genuine operational urgency, not just political commitment.

The EU angle is worth watching too. The EU committed €6 billion to Ukrainian drone production in October 2025. The draft statement says the E5 will work on capability initiatives consistent with both EU and NATO frameworks. That links directly to the EU’s €150 billion SAFE defense loan fund, which 15 of 19 participating member states have already flagged for Ukrainian defense industry involvement. The program lines are converging.

DroneXL’s Take

I’ve been watching Europe scramble to absorb Ukraine’s drone warfare lessons since Russia’s full-scale invasion began. Ukraine just opened 10 drone export hubs across Europe and put its first German-made drone on a production line earlier this month. LEAP is the formal institutional response to what Ukraine’s manufacturers have already built informally. That’s not a criticism — it’s just the reality of how large alliances move. The factories exist. The doctrine exists. The question is whether European governments can plug into them without bureaucratizing the speed out of the equation.

Here’s what concerns me about LEAP. The name is right. The concept is right. The member states are right. But “low-cost” in the title could mean very different things to a French defense ministry used to Airbus contracts versus what it means to a Ukrainian manufacturer working out of a repurposed factory in Dnipro. If LEAP routes development through traditional primes, the “low-cost” part will quietly disappear by the time the first prototype arrives.

The smart play is direct technology transfer from Ukrainian manufacturers, co-production in Poland and Germany, and a pay-for-performance contract structure that mirrors what Fedorov built with Ukraine’s interceptor program. That’s the only way LEAP produces actual low-cost effectors rather than low-cost brochures.

My prediction: By September 2026, LEAP will have its first funded development contract. The countries that push for Ukrainian co-production from the start — my money is on Poland — will have viable systems in the field within 18 months. The ones that route through traditional contractors will still be in requirements-definition meetings when those systems are already deployed.

Editorial Note: AI tools were used to assist with research and archive retrieval for this article. All reporting, analysis, and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo.