France, Germany, Italy and Poland signed a letter of intent on Thursday to develop ground-launched cruise missiles with a range beyond 500 km (310 miles), aiming to fill what they say is a gap in European arsenals exposed by Russia's war in Ukraine, Paralel.Az reports citing Reuters.

Speaking on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Washington after the signing ceremony, French Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu said the new missile was meant to serve as a deterrent.

"The idea is to open it up as widely as possible," he told reporters, and suggested Britain's new Labour government could join. "It has value, including on a budgetary level, because it obviously also allows the various costs to be amortized."

A first draft of the weapon might be sketched out by the end of the year, he said, with the specifications such as the range to be worked out in more detail later.

He was speaking one day after Washington and Berlin announced they would begin deploying U.S. long-range missiles on German soil in 2026, including the SM-6, Tomahawks and developmental hypersonic weapons.

The deployment, condemned by Moscow as a "very serious threat" to Russian national security, is seen as a stop-gap solution until Europe has its own long-range missiles ready.