K-STER C
Exail expendable underwater vehicle that destroys mines with a shaped charge.
Belgium ordered three Exail TRIDENT boat systems on 14 September 2026 to deploy the K-STER C against mines for Ukraine, a €9.87m direct award on a 24-month contract.
Last refreshed: 7 October 2026 · Appears in 1 active topic
How many K-STER C vehicles will Ukraine fire per mine?
Timeline for K-STER C
Belgium buys Exail mine kit for Ukraine
Autonomous Systems: Land & SeaBackground
The K-STER C is an expendable mine-disposal vehicle made by Exail. It swims to a mine and destroys itself with it, using a shaped charge. Naval News gives it as 1,500mm long and 55kg. Exail says a patented tilting head carries the charge and that it works against ground, moored, historical and smart mines.
Ukraine will field it under a Belgian purchase: three TRIDENT launch boats, ordered from Exail in mid-September 2026 for clearing mines. Exail Technologies, the French parent, still trades in its own name while its merger with Thales runs to 2028.
The design trades the vehicle for safety. Each one is lost with the mine it destroys, but it keeps divers and crews out of the minefield, which matters on a coast seeded with mines by an active war.
Ukraine gets the mine-killer through Belgium
On 14 September 2026 the Belgian defence ministry gave Exail's Belgian robotics unit a €9.87m contract, directly and without a tender, covering three TRIDENT launch boats that carry the K-STER C to Ukraine over 24 months. The award does not say how many K-STER C vehicles come with the boats.
It was the largest underwater-autonomy notice in Europe between 5 September and 7 October, when most buyers ordered single vehicles. The notice matches July's order for three Exail light mine-countermeasures systems from an undisclosed European navy, and neither Exail nor Belgium has said whether it is the same contract. Because each K-STER C is spent on the mine it destroys, a clearance campaign keeps consuming them.
