The Leonardo-Baykar Partnership
/By Nico Marcucci, edited by Aaron Koenders
In March 2025, Leonardo CEO Roberto Cingolani announced that Europe could soon have European-certified unmanned aerial vehicles through cooperation between Italy’s Leonardo and Türkiye’s Baykar (Daily Sabah 2026). The Italian Turkish partnership emerged in 2025 with the creation of Leonardo Baykar Aerospace Systems (LBA Systems), a balanced joint venture between the two companies. Its legal and operational headquarters were strategically placed in Italy, meaning that LBA Systems’ products may be certified for the European market. This is critical because the war in Ukraine and recent conflicts in the Middle East have confirmed the growing centrality of drones in contemporary warfare, while Europe lacks production capability. Drones are no longer secondary tools, they have become strategic assets for surveillance, precision strikes, battlefield adaptation, and cost-effective military pressure. The joint venture therefore aims to fill a visible European capability gap at a moment when demand for drones is rapidly increasing. Yet, the agreement goes beyond the commercial realm, as both Italy and Türkiye are central NATO members with the latter controlling the Alliance’s second-largest army after the United States. Thus, this partnership reflects three core trends: the rising demand for drones in warfare, Türkiye’s emergence as a defence-industrial power, and NATO’s need for a more integrated defence production.
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles:
To understand the importance of this partnership, it is first necessary to briefly consider how drones are shaping the modern warfare ecosystem. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, commonly referred to as UAVs or drones, have become one of the most visible symbols of contemporary conflicts. Broadly, military UAVs can be divided into two categories: Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) platforms and Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles (UCAVs). ISR drones are mainly used to gather information, monitor enemy movements, support targeting, and improve battlefield awareness; while their effectiveness is often dependent on altitude, endurance, and their sensors’ sophistication. Small tactical drones are now widely available and easily adaptable, including for dual-use purposes, but their military value can be limited when they face advanced air defence systems.
By contrast, Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) and High Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) UAVs offer greater strategic utility, as they can operate for longer periods and support more complex missions. However, their development remains technologically demanding, and the Western market has traditionally been dominated by American and Israeli companies. UCAVs represent a further evolution. Unlike ISR drones, these systems integrate reconnaissance with strike capabilities. In this sense, they partly overlap with the role once associated mainly with manned combat aircraft. Yet, their effectiveness depends on complex software, sensors, communication systems, and decision-making architecture; as such, these advanced combat systems require millions of lines of code to enable the contextual decision-making necessary for combat effectiveness (Gilli and Gilli 2016, 77). This makes drone warfare not only a matter of airframes and weapons, but also of software, data processing, electronic warfare resilience, and system integration.
The 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine confirmed the centrality of drones in modern warfare. However, Türkiye’s position in the drone market had already been shaped before Ukraine. The Bayraktar TB2 was used in Syria, Libya, and especially in the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, where drones played a decisive role in Azerbaijan’s military success. In the Caucasus, drones reportedly contributed to around $1.9 billion in hardware losses, including 146 tanks (Spyridon Plakoudas and Vasileios Sofitis 2023, 45). These conflicts demonstrated that relatively affordable UAVs could deliver significant operational effects, especially against forces unable to adapt quickly to aerial surveillance and precision strikes.
Ukraine then moved this lesson into a different level. Unlike Syria, Libya, or Nagorno-Karabakh, the war in Ukraine involved a high-intensity conflict against a peer adversary with dense air defences and advanced electronic warfare capabilities. In the early phase of the war, the TB2 was celebrated as a “game changer” and became a symbol of Ukrainian resistance. Yet, Russia recalibrated its air defence and electronic warfare systems and TB2’s strike effectiveness declined sharply, leading to what Plakoudas and Sofitis described as its “enigmatic disappearance” from Ukrainian skies (Spyridon Plakoudas and Vasileios Sofitis 2023, 44). However, this does not mean that drones became irrelevant. Rather, it shows a crucial lesson: drones are highly effective, but their survivability depends on the wider technological ecosystem in which they operate.
This is where the Leonardo-Baykar partnership becomes strategically important. Baykar has built its reputation on producing relatively affordable, exportable, and combat-tested unmanned aerial platforms such as the TB2, TB3, Akıncı, and the new Kızılelma. Leonardo, by contrast, provides the high-end technological systems that can strengthen these platforms: sensors, radar, mission systems, electronics, and integration expertise (Vignola 2025). The partnership is therefore not simply a commercial agreement between an Italian defence company and a Turkish drone manufacturer, it reflects a broader attempt to combine Türkiye’s operationally proven drone production with Europe’s advanced defence technologies.
The Leonardo-Baykar Agreement:
Officially presented at the Paris Air Show in 2025, Leonardo Baykar Aerospace Systems is an equal joint venture focused exclusively on unmanned aerial vehicles (Batacchi 2025). The initiative followed the memorandum of understanding signed in March 2025 by Roberto Cingolani, Leonardo’s CEO and General Manager, and Selçuk Bayraktar, Chairman and CTO of Baykar Defense. On paper, this is an industrial agreement between two defence companies. In practice, however, it has wider political and strategic importance.
Baykar is a private Turkish company, but its position cannot be fully separated from Ankara’s broader foreign-policy and defence-industrial agenda. Selçuk Bayraktar, Baykar CEO, is also President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s son-in-law, which reinforces the perception that Baykar’s rise is closely connected to Türkiye’s state-backed ambition to become a more autonomous defence actor. Leonardo, on the other hand, is one of Europe’s major defence companies, its major shareholder is the Italian state, and it operates in close coordination with the Italian Ministry of Defence. Leonardo’s role in European defence initiatives, particularly the European Defence Fund, gives the partnership an importance that goes beyond ordinary commercial cooperation (Redazione Analisi Difesa 2026). For this reason, LBA Systems should be understood not only as a business venture, but as part of a wider defence-industrial and diplomatic alignment between Italy, Türkiye, and NATO’s evolving security needs.
The logic of the partnership is based on complementarity. Baykar brings combat-tested UAV platforms, rapid innovation cycles, and operational experience gained through conflicts such as Syria, Libya, Nagorno-Karabakh, and Ukraine. Leonardo contributes high-end systems integration, sensors, mission systems, radar, C4I (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, and Intelligence) capabilities, artificial intelligence, and experience with European certification standards (Leonardo 2025). This combination matters because drone warfare is no longer solely about producing airframes. The effectiveness of UAVs increasingly depends on the wider technological ecosystem around them: communications, targeting, electronic warfare resilience, satellite connectivity, and the ability to operate within NATO-standard command structures.
Leonardo’s contribution is therefore particularly important. Turkish drones have achieved considerable operational visibility, but deeper access to European and NATO defence markets requires more than battlefield success. It also requires certification, interoperability, regulatory compliance, and integration into existing defence architectures. Leonardo’s experience with these frameworks may therefore act as a gateway for Baykar’s platforms into the European market (Anicetti 2026, 7). At the same time, Baykar gives Leonardo access to drone systems that are already combat-proven and commercially successful, reducing the time and cost that would be required to develop similar platforms independently.
This consolidated industrial base is also positioned to compete effectively in a rapidly expanding European defence market for unmanned systems, which is projected to reach $100 billion over the next decade (Segreti 2025). In this context, the Italian location of industrial production matters. Part of the production will be based in Nerviano, near Milan, where LBA Systems will also focus on solutions for the space sector. This is not a minor detail as future drone operations will increasingly depend on satellite connectivity, resilient communications, and the ability to operate in contested electronic environments. By connecting UAVs with space-based systems and C4I integration, Leonardo and Baykar are attempting to build not only drones, but a wider multi-domain capability.
This integration is critical for the NATO Alliance in two principal ways. First, it may help reduce a European capability gap in unmanned systems at a time when the war in Ukraine has demonstrated the urgent need for scalable drone production. Second, it signals Türkiye’s growing role not merely as a NATO member located on the Alliance’s southern flank, but as a defence-industrial actor capable of contributing to NATO’s technological base. This is an important shift as it evidences that Türkiye is no longer simply a country that receives Western defence technology; it is increasingly becoming a producer and a possible partner in shaping future military capabilities.
Italy and Türkiye relations:
The newly established partnership also fits into the wider Italy-Türkiye relationship. The bilateral relationship between Italy and Türkiye has become an increasingly important axis of stability in a shifting security environment. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and amid continuing instability across the Mediterranean and the Middle East, both Rome and Ankara have had to reassess their security cooperation beyond traditional frameworks. This has been reinforced by a persistent structural gap in EU-Türkiye relations: while the EU recognises Türkiye’s strategic value, its political relationship with Ankara remains constrained by Türkiye’s continued exclusion from the European project. This gap has encouraged Italy to strengthen bilateral cooperation with Türkiye as a more flexible and pragmatic channel of engagement (Chiriatti 2026, 6).
Italy’s strategic posture has traditionally rested on three circles: the Atlantic relationship with the United States and NATO, the European Union, and the Mediterranean, thereby providing continuity in Italian foreign policy. However, under Giorgia Meloni’s government, Rome has pursued a more assertive understanding of national interest within these circles, particularly in the Mediterranean and defence sectors (Chiriatti 2026, 5). Türkiye, meanwhile, has become a central security actor in the region as it wields NATO’s second-largest military and continues to present itself as a Western-oriented power, while pursuing greater strategic autonomy. Historically, Türkiye’s military position was essential to containing the Soviet threat. Today, its access to regional actors across the Middle East gives NATO a degree of operational and diplomatic reach that few other members can offer (Davutoğlu 2012, 17).
Simultaneously, Ankara’s foreign policy remains deeply complex. Türkiye has supported Ukraine, yet it has also maintained pragmatic relations with the Russian State, particularly in relation to energy, food security, and diplomacy. This has allowed Ankara to remain one of the few actors capable of sustaining high-level dialogue with Russia, Ukraine, and NATO at the same time (Tykhonenko and Rachynska 2025, 130). This dual-track approach reflects Ankara’s pursuit of strategic autonomy: useful for mediation and flexibility, but potentially complicated for deeper NATO defence-industrial integration.
This is why the Leonardo-Baykar deal has also raised questions amongst some analysts. While the joint venture could strengthen European drone capabilities, it may also provide Türkiye with deeper access to the EU defence ecosystem. Some have described this risk as a possible “Trojan horse” for Turkish influence within European defence structures (Anicetti 2026, 4). One concern is that the partnership could indirectly support Ankara’s access to the Global Combat Air Programme, the major sixth-generation combat aircraft project focused on stealth-capable fighter jets developed by Italy, the United Kingdom, and Japan. If this happens, Turkish participation through LBA Systems could give Ankara a greater role in shaping the future combat aircraft market for middle powers (Anicetti 2026, 8).
Conclusion
Ultimately, the Leonardo-Baykar partnership should not be read as a simple industrial agreement. It reflects a wider shift in the way contemporary warfare, defence production, and alliance politics are evolving. Drones are no longer secondary tools used only for surveillance or limited tactical operations. From Ukraine to Nagorno-Karabakh, they have shown their capacity to reshape the battlefield, expose vulnerabilities in traditional military systems, and force states to rethink how they prepare for future conflicts.
In this context, the cooperation between Leonardo and Baykar is pivotal because it brings together two different but complementary strengths: Turkish operational experience and European technological integration. Baykar offers platforms that have already been tested in real conflicts, while Leonardo provides the sensors, certification, mission systems, and industrial access needed to adapt them to NATO and European standards.
For NATO, this could strengthen drone capabilities and support a more resilient defence-industrial base. Yet, it also raises increasingly important political questions. Türkiye remains a crucial ally, but one that pursues strategic autonomy and maintains pragmatic relations with Russia. The Leonardo-Baykar partnership therefore illustrates both the opportunity and the complexity of NATO’s future: stronger through cooperation, but increasingly shaped by allies whose interests do not always fully overlap.
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