LARUS

LARUS is Germany's Bundeswehr counter-drone procurement programme, standing for Luftgestützte Aufklärung MIT Unbemannten Systemen (airborne reconnaissance with unmanned systems). It became the destination for a roughly $30 million AeroVironment Puma Systems Stack order, routed through NSPA, the NATO Support and Procurement Agency, on 7 July 2026 .

The order covers 14 Puma reconnaissance drone systems for German forces, with deliveries expected in late 2026. Routing the purchase through NSPA rather than a direct bilateral deal lets Germany buy into an established NATO procurement framework, a common route for allied militaries wanting to field equipment already in wide alliance use without running a fresh national tender from scratch.

LARUS sits alongside Germany's growing counter-drone investment more broadly, part of a wider European push, visible too in the UK's LCADE and the five-nation LEAP framework, to close the gap between cheap hostile drones and the reconnaissance and interception systems needed to counter them.