MBDA, Europe's largest missile manufacturer and the maker of the Storm Shadow cruise missiles Ukraine already fires at Russian targets, has signed a memorandum of understanding with Ukraine's state-owned Luch Design Bureau to jointly develop the Neptune-2 cruise missile. The two sides announced the deal on 16 June 2026 at the Eurosatory defense exhibition near Paris.

The agreement attaches a Western prime contractor to Ukraine's flagship homegrown deep-strike weapon — the missile Luch built that sank the Russian cruiser Moskva in April 2022. MBDA credited Luch with "specific knowledge, abilities and experience" in building complex weapons, and said the partners would "pursue disruptive innovation to develop the deep strike capability" for Neptune-2, according to the company's published statement.

For now the memorandum commits the two companies to cooperation, not production. It sets out joint work on long-range strike capabilities, with no signed contract, delivery schedule, or shared funding figure attached.

Luch's R-360 Neptune entered service with the Ukrainian Navy in 2021, adapted from the Soviet-era Kh-35 anti-ship missile. Ukraine has since stretched its range from around 300 km to a reported 1,000 km in the Long Neptune variant, fitted with a 260 kg warhead, and turned it from a ship-killer into a land-attack weapon used against Russian air bases, oil refineries, and ammunition depots — more than 50 targets in a single year, by the Navy's count.

MBDA is not the first European partner to reach for Neptune. Romania announced plans to co-develop the missile with Ukraine in 2024. Earlier in June, MBDA signed a separate strategic partnership with Ukrainian manufacturer Ukrainian Armor on drones and counter-drone systems.

MBDA is a joint venture of French, German, Italian, Spanish, and British defense firms, with a catalogue running from Storm Shadow and the naval cruise missile often described as Europe's answer to the Tomahawk to the Aster, CAMM, and Mistral air-defense families. The company sells finished missiles to other nations' armed forces. Here it is doing the opposite — building on a design a Ukrainian bureau has spent the war proving in combat.