British Unit in Tapa Deploys Nyan Deep Strike Drones with Estonian-Made Launch Systems

The British unit stationed at Tapa has deployed BAE Systems’ Nyan one-way effector, a jet-powered single-use drone with a range of over 250 kilometres, giving the allies a long-range precision strike option from Estonian soil. The systems arrived during the Spring Storm exercise and have already been used in training. British Army spokesperson Melissa Terry told Postimees that Nyan complements existing fire support as part of a broader deep strike capability and is meant to be a relatively affordable way of achieving precision effects at distance — and that the British Army launches it from two Estonian-made systems, the Ely PL80 and the Threod CATA BT. Nyan has a 2.9 metre wingspan, a maximum take-off weight above 75 kilograms, a payload under 20 kilograms and a speed of around 220 km/h; the number deployed in Estonia is not disclosed for operational security reasons.

Key Developments This Week

  • A new kind of British presence: The Estonia–UK defence cooperation action plan signed in Tallinn in July ended the armoured concept that brought Challenger 2 tanks and Warrior fighting vehicles to Tapa ten years ago. The replacement unit is built around highly mobile vehicles, modern weapon systems and drones, designed for the Estonian operating environment and integrated into the British Army’s reconnaissance and strike concept so it can redeploy and disperse quickly
  • Estonia chooses Piirsalu for its RDX plant: The government approved the national designated spatial plan placing a €150 million plant at the Piirsalu defence industrial park in Lääne-Nigula, West Estonia, producing up to 1,200 tonnes of RDX a year from 2028 and creating about 75 jobs, with the state spending more than €6 million on basic infrastructure. State-owned developer Hexest Materials is offering a 49 percent stake to a strategic investor from among allied explosives, ammunition or weapons manufacturers, has already picked a preferred technology partner, and has brought in Polish specialists after visiting Nitro-Chem. Estonia’s oil shale is a raw material for hexamine, a key RDX ingredient
  • Herem on the explosives gap: Defence Minister Martin Herem called the plant strategically necessary, noting that NATO countries currently face a shortage of explosives production capacity and that Piirsalu gives Estonia a chance to help close it
  • Patria expands in Valmiera: The Finnish group laid the foundation stone on 7 October for a new Patria Latvia military vehicle facility at the Valmiera Industrial and Export Park, next to Defence Partnership Latvia. Until now only Patria 6×6 armoured personnel carriers were built there; the new site will add assembly and maintenance of GDELS HUNTER infantry fighting vehicles and full life-cycle support, with the building due in the third quarter of 2027. Defence Minister Raivis Melnis framed it as security of supply; CEO Panu Routila as proof of Patria’s long-term commitment to Latvia
  • UDS sets up in Ukraine: Lithuania’s Unmanned Defense Systems has launched the joint venture UDS Ukraine to work directly with Ukrainian units on deployment, operator training and development of its FORECASTER ISTAR UAV, AVENGER 5 precision strike UAV, HAULER multi-payload UAV and SWARM C2 software. CEO Vytenis J. Buzas, who led LituanicaSAT-1 and co-founded NanoAvionics before Kongsberg bought 77 percent of it in 2022, said the aim is not simply to supply products. “We don’t want to be a foreign company that simply sells its systems into Ukraine,” said UDS Ukraine CEO Stepan Veselovskyi
  • Lithuania tests Ukraine’s SkyFortress: The Ministry of Defence is piloting the Ukrainian-developed system, which uses AI to detect, track and classify low-flying drones and cruise missiles from their acoustic and radio-frequency signatures, as the first layer of the national air defence network. “Instead of developing everything from scratch, we are adapting systems that are already operating in Ukraine,” said Defence Minister Robertas Kaunas
  • HEVI Optronics plans a €20 million second factory: The Quantum Systems-controlled electro-optics maker plans a second plant in Tabasalu near Tallinn, opening in early 2029 with about 100 jobs, to make in-house the sensors, optics and precision-mechanics components it now partly buys in, plus a Tartu R&D office opening in November. CEO Kristjan Tiimus says volumes of tens of thousands of units require full control of the supply chain. HEVI’s 2025 revenue nearly tripled to €27.15 million and operating profit rose fivefold to €7.5 million
  • RKIK opens a €195 million tender: One of the Estonian Centre for Defence Investments’ largest procurements to date covers five lots under seven-year framework agreements — three for ammunition worth €145 million and two for weapons worth €50 million — including 40 mm and 23 mm weapons and 76 mm, 40 mm and 23 mm ammunition, all of which must be made in EU or NATO states and already in service there
  • Datasel still waiting on RKIK: The Indian-owned Italian company at the centre of the shell scandal that cost Hanno Pevkur his post as defence minister says it has had no answer to its 14 September compromise proposal, which offered to supply all contracted munitions and form a joint working group. Estonia paid a €70 million advance for shells funded from frozen Russian assets, is now claiming tens of millions back over late and unusable deliveries, and faces a counterclaim of similar size; RKIK says the proposal has been rejected
  • Estonia shields NPM Silmet’s Russian supplier: At Tallinn’s request, Solikamsk Magnesium Plant and its general director Ruslan Dimukhamedov were removed from the EU’s new sanctions list of nearly 1,600 entries because the plant supplies raw materials to Sillamäe-based rare earths processor NPM Silmet, owned by Canada’s Neo Performance Materials. Estonia says Silmet is seeking alternative sources and that it will revisit the listing next year
  • Defence money stays at home: Of nearly €1.35 billion in defence investments and operating costs in 2025, a record €592 million went to more than 2,600 Estonian companies, according to Deputy Secretary General Siim Sukles — over €100 million more than the year before. Over four years the share is 46 percent, or €1.72 billion of €3.76 billion; 95 percent of the €119 million infrastructure spend and 98.2 percent of the Defence League’s €19.1 million in purchases went to domestic suppliers
  • Corporate news: Finnish group Summa Defence, in which Baltic Workboats holds 8.23 percent and BaltCap Latvia 1.23 percent, has filed for corporate restructuring after a €17.9 million first-half loss and may sell Aquamec and Lightspace Group. Wolfram Europa, which is building a €200 million explosives complex in Jēkabpils, has named retired Major General Veiko-Vello Palm, former Estonian Division Commander and Deputy Chief of Defence, as chairman of its new supervisory board. SSD Expo 2027 (16–17 June 2027, Ķīpsala, Riga) is represented at AUSA in Washington, and Techritory 2026 meets in Riga on 21–22 October with digital security and sovereignty as its focus
  • Latvia’s border turns violent: On 11 October three masked people smugglers who had brought 20 migrants to the Belarusian border pelted Latvian border guards with stones, and one drew an object resembling a pistol and threatened to shoot. Latvia is seeing its highest illegal migration since Lithuania and Poland’s 2021 crisis, in what officials describe as a coordinated Belarusian campaign backed by Moscow, with 10 electrical boxes and 11 cameras damaged this year and a dozen more cameras and sensors stolen

Defence Industry Dimension

The week’s lead story is a British capability, but the hardware that puts it in the air is Estonian, and that is the pattern across the region. Allied forces bring the doctrine and the effector; Ely and Threod supply the launchers; UDS takes its systems to Ukraine to be tested against the battlefield; Lithuania imports a Ukrainian sensor rather than building its own. The more structural news is further upstream. With Piirsalu approved, the Baltic states now have two RDX projects in motion — Wolfram Europa’s privately financed complex in Jēkabpils and Estonia’s state-majority Hexest plant — both justified by the same argument that Europe has rebuilt its demand for munitions faster than its capacity to make the energetics inside them. Patria’s HUNTER line in Valmiera and HEVI’s in-house sensor plant follow the same logic of security of supply: assemble, repair and source components close to where the vehicles and drones will be used. The week also carried the costs of moving fast — the Datasel dispute still unresolved, Summa Defence in restructuring two months after reporting a full order book, and Estonia quietly protecting a Russian raw material supplier because there is not yet an alternative. On Latvia’s border with Belarus, meanwhile, the hybrid pressure is escalating from crossings to armed confrontation.