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Europe Is Building a 2,000 km Strike Missile With Ukraine as Its Test Ground
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![Photo of Vlad Litnarovych]( "Photo of Vlad Litnarovych")
European defense firm Destinus is accelerating development of the RUTA Block 3 long-range strike missile together with Rheinmetall, aiming to create a 2,000-kilometer-class precision weapon that will be tested in Ukraine.
Destinus said on May 18 that flight tests for RUTA Block 3 are expected to begin in 2027. The new missile will build on the existing RUTA architecture, which has already moved from battlefield validation to serial industrial production.
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RUTA Block 1 is already being manufactured in the Netherlands, where Destinus is expanding production capacity across its European network.
RUTA Block 2, developed with support from Ukraine’s Brave1 defense innovation platform, is currently undergoing flight testing in Ukraine and is expected to move toward production scale-up in 2026.
The company says RUTA Block 3 is designed to push the family into a new long-range category while keeping development and production under European control.
“The program is designed to shift European long-range strike from limited inventories toward sustained industrial production,” Destinus said.
The effort will be organized across three industrial hubs. In the Netherlands, Destinus serves as the engineering and design authority and the main production site for the RUTA family.
In Ukraine, the company will participate in the development and operational testing of RUTA Block 3 while also supporting the production of key components.
In Germany, the planned Rheinmetall Destinus Strike Systems joint venture is expected to provide high-rate manufacturing, certification, and final integration capacity for the Bundeswehr and other European customers.
Production at Rheinmetall’s Unterlüß site is expected to begin with RUTA Block 1 and Block 2 in 2026–2027, before later expanding to Block 3 after flight testing and certification.
“Europe is entering a new defence era where the decisive factor is no longer the existence of precision weapons, but the ability to produce, replenish, and evolve them at an industrial scale during prolonged high-intensity operations,” said Mikhail Kokorich, CEO of Destinus.
“RUTA Block 3 is designed around that reality: sovereign European architecture, distributed industrial production, and the ability to scale rapidly across allied nations. Our objective is not to manufacture symbolic quantities of exquisite missiles, but to help establish a credible European long-range strike capability with real industrial depth.”
Rheinmetall CEO Armin Papperger said the missile reflects Europe’s growing need for deep precision strike capabilities.
“Deep precision strike capabilities, meaning the ability to strike strategically important targets with pinpoint accuracy, even deep within the enemy’s territory, contribute to a credible deterrent and are therefore of great importance in terms of security policy,” said Papperger. “We are ready to establish the Rheinmetall Destinus Strike Systems joint venture with our partner Destinus before the end of this year and to provide these capabilities to our customers as soon as possible. We are excited to produce and deliver the first missiles from our Unterlüß site before the end of 2026.”
RUTA Block 3 is expected to use a next-generation turbojet engine, the larger Destinus T220 currently in development, and carry a 250-kilogram-class warhead. The system is being designed for long-range missions in contested environments.
The missile will combine autonomous navigation for operations where GNSS signals are degraded or jammed with terminal sensing and guidance systems now under development. It will also use a standard ISO containerized launch architecture, allowing deployment from land-based, maritime, and fixed-site platforms.
Destinus said the system is being shaped by operational lessons from Ukraine and will be developed, produced, and exported in accordance with national and European law, export-control regulations, and required government approvals.
Earlier, the United States completed a full-scale test of the Rusty Dagger cruise missile, developed under the ERAM (Expedited Rapid Advanced Missile) program specifically for Ukraine.
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