On Monday, April 13, 2026, the German Rheinmetall AG group and the Dutch company Destinus announced plans to establish, in the second half of this year, the joint venture Rheinmetall Destinus Strike Systems, which will manufacture cruise and ballistic missiles for field artillery. Rheinmetall will hold a 51% stake, while Destinus will own the remaining 49%. The transaction is subject to approval by the Federal Cartel Office (Bundeskartellamt), and the company will be headquartered in Unterlüß, Lower Saxony.
Photo: Destinus
As part of the partnership, Rheinmetall AG and Destinus intend to capitalize on market opportunities and further develop advanced missile systems. In the agreed markets and subject to the required approvals, they aim to deliver innovative solutions in the field of cruise missiles and ballistic rocket artillery while strengthening the existing product portfolio.
Destinus will remain headquartered in the Kingdom of the Netherlands and will continue to develop and manufacture key systems and components across its operations in the country and, more broadly, throughout Europe. The joint venture, which will be based in Germany, will expand production capacity and series manufacturing at Rheinmetall AG’s industrial facilities.
Rheinmetall CEO Armin Papperger said:
“We must expand the industrial base for modern defence systems in Europe. This joint venture reflects this necessity. We are combining Rheinmetall’s production capacities and experience in managing large-scale programs with Destinus’s specific technology and system design. By doing so, we are laying the foundations for scalable, operational missiles that are tailored to the current requirements of the European and allied armed forces.”
“Europe is entering a new phase of scaling missile production,” added Mikhail Kokorich, co-founder and CEO of Destinus. “Modern conflict is defined by volume and cost-per-effect. Missile systems are evolving from limited-production assets into industrial products. The real constraint in Europe today is not demand, but industrial capacity.”
Ongoing armed conflicts, including those in Ukraine and the Middle East, have shown that demand for scalable strike systems is no longer measured in limited batches. Instead, there is growing demand for thousands of systems per year, which could eventually rise to tens of thousands as European and allied orders adjust. This translates into a market opportunity worth hundreds of millions of euros annually in the near term, with the potential to reach several billion over time.
This partnership will combine Destinus’s combat-proven system architecture, product design, and scalable platform development – including systems already operationally validated and used in Ukraine – with the industrial scale, qualification capabilities, and production execution of Rheinmetall, Germany’s leading defense group.
Destinus develops and manufactures cruise missile systems and turbojet engines, running an established serial production program in Europe and currently producing more than 2,000 cruise missile systems annually. Worth mentioning here is the autonomous Ruta Block 2 medium-range cruise missile unveiled at the beginning of this year, with a range of 500 km and a 250 kg warhead, based on the Block 1 model (400 km, 150 kg) used by the Armed Forces of Ukraine since 2024. It is powered by the T150 propulsion engine with 1,500 N of thrust and guided by the Vector Vista Block 2 navigation system based on artificial intelligence. The company has also developed the Hornet interceptor drone in Block 1 and Block 2 versions. Earlier, it also offered the propeller-driven Lord unmanned aerial vehicle.
On November 19 of this year, it entered into cooperation with the American company Shield AI to integrate the Hivemind autonomous software suite, based on artificial intelligence and designed to control platforms such as the latest X-Bat in communications- and GPS-denied environments, as well as under electromagnetic jamming and electronic warfare conditions. Earlier, in August, it acquired the Swiss AI company Daedalean, with the takeover completed on January 5 of this year.
Rheinmetall AG, for its part, brings many years of experience in the development and production of complex military systems, an industrial presence in Germany, and substantial ongoing investment in sovereign, scalable production for the armed forces. Together, the partners will gain German industrial capacity for serial manufacturing and qualification, supporting European sovereignty goals and allied requirements.
The joint venture will focus on the production, assembly, testing, and delivery of advanced cruise missile systems in order to accelerate the delivery of a missile system developed specifically for this purpose and designed to meet the requirements of domestic and international customers.
The joint venture will target the broader international market in Europe, as well as selected NATO partner states. In the case of individual key markets, the involvement of local industrial partners will be possible. Both companies will contribute their expertise and market knowledge in order to define the appropriate sales structures and drive sustainable growth in the relevant market segments.
This initiative reflects a broader shift in modern warfare, in which long-range strike capabilities are evolving from solutions based primarily on drones toward faster, more resilient, and more industrially scalable cruise missile systems. Through this joint venture, Rheinmetall AG and Destinus aim to bridge the gap between the needs of Europe and Ukraine and the capabilities of the European defense industry, at scale and at industrial pace.
#Rheinmetall and Destinus to form a #jointventure for #missiles https://t.co/FEHlScl8AQ pic.twitter.com/DWYUFAFQzJ
— Rheinmetall (@RheinmetallAG) April 13, 2026