MBDA chalks up first export contract for Sky Warden C-UAV system

MBDA has signed its first export contract, with a Middle Eastern country, to provide its Sky Warden counter-unmanned aerial vehicle (C-UAV) solution, the company announced on 21 November 2025.

The customer country has not been named, but Lorenzo Mariani, MBDA’s executive group director for sales and business development, was quoted by the company as stating, “Signing this export contract marks a crucial step in our commitment to ensuring the security and sovereignty of our partners around the world. Sky Warden provides an innovative and comprehensive response to the challenges posed by asymmetric air threats. This unique drone-fighting system combines state-of-the-art technology, unprecedented flexibility, and a constantly evolving capability. With Sky Warden, we offer our customers robust and adaptable protection against all UAV threats, today and tomorrow.”

Sky Warden is a comprehensive multi-layer system that protects an area from micro- to tactical drones out to a range of 8 km. It offers a wide range of complementary effectors designed to counter and destroy enemy drones, such as the Cilas HELMA-P laser weapon, omni and directional jammers, MBDA hit-to-kill drone interceptors and the MBDA Mistral 3 surface-to-air missile.

Sky Warden is also a scalable system that can evolve over time according to the needs of users and to the evolution of threats, given its modular architecture and the easy integration of new effectors.

“The system is highly flexible, either dismounted to protect fixed sites, or vehicle-mounted for mobile protection,” MBDA stated. “It may also be integrated with other medium-range air defence capabilities like the VL MICA or CAMM-ER [missiles] or connected to higher level.”

In October 2025 the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) designated Sky Warden as the best C-UAV system to protect the EU’s borders.