The government on Wednesday at a meeting approved the exception requested by the Ministry of National Defence (KAM) so that public procurement would not apply to these acquisitions.
According to KAM, applying this exception is allowed by the circumstances specified in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (EU), that each member state may take measures it considers necessary to protect its vital security interests related to the production or trade of weapons, ammunition, and military materials.
“The topic of air defense in Lithuania is one of the most important, and we must ensure the safety of our skies, and that is what we are doing,” said Minister of National Defence Robertas Kaunas at the meeting.
“This project aims to acquire the necessary solutions for Lithuania’s air defense more quickly and proposes to use the EU (…) provisions that allow member states not to apply EU law requirements if it is necessary to protect vital security interests,” he presented.
According to R. Kaunas, applying the exception is necessary to create a unified, effective anti-drone air defense system in Lithuania, which would consist of various surveillance, control, management, and response systems.
“With this specific project, we plan to rapidly, very quickly acquire more than ten radars, allocating more than 60 million euros for this. It is also planned to acquire a large number of different technology drone interceptors, utilizing Ukraine’s experience. About 20 million euros are allocated for this,” the minister indicated.
In turn, Prime Minister Mindaugas Sinkevičius emphasized that his attention to the Military Air Forces also influenced this decision.
“Visiting Karmėlava, we heard the need for some stuck matters. I am glad that we were able to promptly return to them and today make a significant decision regarding our air defense, which remains a pressing and important issue alongside the division, brigade, and other national defense matters,” said M. Sinkevičius.
It is planned to acquire short-range “Spexter” radars and passive “Twinvis” radars from the German company “Hensoldt”.
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“These radars are compatible with the radar systems used by the Lithuanian Armed Forces and have the ability to integrate into the Lithuanian and NATO air defense architecture,” the ministry states.
According to it, the “Twinvis” and “Spexer” solutions complement each other – “Twinvis” ensures passive and harder-to-detect airspace monitoring, while “Spexer” ensures active detection of objects at low altitudes, their tracking, and classification.
“The integration of these radars creates conditions to develop a more reliable and resilient airspace monitoring capability, allowing earlier threat detection, improving situational awareness, and shortening response times to airspace incidents,” KAM states.
Public procurement will also not apply to trial batches of drone interceptors. It is planned to acquire the “Merops” system from the US manufacturer “Perennial Autonomy,” “Blaze” from the Latvian company “Origin Robotics,” “Black Bird” from the French manufacturer “Alta Ares,” “Metis” from the German company “Tytan Technologies,” “Interceptor-MR” from the UK “Marss,” “Black wasp,” “Hunter Interceptor,” and “Defender” from Lithuanian companies “Granta Autonomy,” “Baltic Viper,” and “Vytis Tech.”
Also, “P1SUN” from the Ukrainian company “Skyfall,” “Sting” from the Ukrainian company “Wild Hornets,” “Kolibri-i10” and “Octopus-100” from another Ukrainian company “TAF Industries.”
“The trial batches of unmanned aerial vehicles aim to test, evaluate, and determine how these aircraft can be integrated into Lithuania’s overall airspace defense system. The acquired interceptor unmanned aerial vehicle systems are designed as a comprehensive defense system that combines different technologies: radars, optical sensors, artificial intelligence, and special interceptor unmanned aerial vehicles,” the ministry states.
“The combination of these elements allows the system to quickly detect approaching unmanned aerial vehicles, enable the system operator to assess their threat, and take action before they reach the protected area,” KAM adds.
According to the ministry, the requirements for interceptors could not be set in public procurement conditions because, during market analysis, evaluating open-source data and data received from the Ukrainian armed forces, it was found that only aircraft produced by the specified manufacturers are technologically the most effective, having passed the test in the Ukrainian war zone.
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