Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands will potentially buy 3,350 ERAM air-launched cruise missiles for Ukraine in an $825m sale approved by the US state department, the Pentagon said on Thursday. The extended range attack munition has a range of “several hundred” miles, according to one of the manufacturers. The package includes the missiles’ GPS guidance kits, electronic warfare defences and more, and apart from the European contribution has additional US government funding.
The approval does not mean the sale has been concluded. Longer-range “standoff” missiles like the ERAM can be fired by Ukrainian warplanes from a distance, allowing them to hit Russian targets with less risk of a fighter jet being shot down. Allies of Ukraine have prioritised developing a series of lower cost, more versatile missiles for Kyiv to use on the battlefield.
It is now “obvious” that a hoped-for meeting between Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, and the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, will not happen, the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, has said. Speaking beside the French president, Emmanuel Macron, Merz said their cabinets would talk about the Ukraine war in light of this fact.
The UK and European Union called in Russian envoys after missile strikes on Kyiv killed at least 21 people and damaged the city’s British Council and EU offices. Four children were among the dead.
