Ukraine has converted a year of diplomatic ambition into a binding industrial contract: 16 Saab JAS 39 Gripen E multirole fighters for SEK 24.6 billion (approximately $2.5 billion), signed June 30 in Kyiv with Swedish and Saab officials present \u2014 the first time in the Ukrainian Air Force’s history that fleet modernization has been financed with new-build aircraft rather than donated or secondhand machines. With NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte announcing that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will attend the July 7\u20138 Ankara summit, where allies are expected to unveil “tens of billions of dollars” in new defence contracts, the Gripen deal arrives as the lead exhibit for what European-funded military procurement can actually deliver.<\/p>\n
The answer, according to Justin Bronk, Senior Research Fellow for Airpower and Technology at the Royal United Services Institute<\/a>, is a platform purpose-engineered for Ukraine’s specific operational problem. In a July 2 analysis, Bronk argued the Gripen is right for Ukraine precisely because it demands a dispersed basing requirement, a rapid turnaround, and a logistics footprint that does not require the kind of runway infrastructure that heavier Western fighters need \u2014 and that these qualities mirror what Ukrainian pilots and ground crews have been doing since 2022.<\/p>\n Ukraine’s First New-Build Fighter Purchase in History<\/p>\n The contract was signed by Ukrainian Deputy Defence Minister Sergiy Boyev and Swedish Defence Materiel Administration Director General Mikael Granholm, with Zelensky and Swedish Defence Minister P\u00e5l Jonson attending the Kyiv ceremony. Saab simultaneously signed an enabling production agreement with FMV, locking the order into Saab’s industrial commitments. The package covers the 16 aircraft plus spare parts, mission software, ground support assets, and an ongoing technical assistance and logistics framework. Saab will book the order in its third-quarter 2026 financial results, with factory deliveries to FMV scheduled across 2029 and 2030.<\/p>\n Defense Express in Kyiv noted the historical weight of the transaction<\/a>: Ukraine has operated military aircraft since 1991, inheriting Soviet-era MiG-29s and Su-27s. This is the first procurement of a new-build aircraft type in that entire period.<\/p>\n The deal is explicitly a first step. Jonson described it on social media<\/a> as the beginning of Ukraine’s ambition to acquire up to 150 Gripen E\/F aircraft over time. A letter of intent covering that larger ambition was signed in October 2025 in Link\u00f6ping; the June 30 contract converts the first 16 aircraft from diplomatic commitment into a hard production order.<\/p>\n What Gripen E Is \u2014 and Why Ukraine Cannot Get This Elsewhere<\/p>\n Ukraine’s current Western fighter inventory consists of F-16AM+ fighters supplied by Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, and Belgium, alongside a small number of French-donated Mirage 2000-5F aircraft. Both are capable platforms, but both carry mechanically scanned array radar systems dating to the 1990s.<\/p>\n The Gripen E is categorically different in its sensor architecture. Its primary radar, the Leonardo ES-05 Raven<\/a>, is an active electronically scanned array with a design feature not found on any other fielded fighter AESA: a mechanical “swashplate” repositioner that physically slews the electronically scanned antenna left and right beyond the aircraft’s nose axis, giving the radar an angular field of view substantially wider than the standard \u00b160-degree electronic scan limit. Every antenna element contains its own solid-state transmit\/receive module \u2014 distributed across the array rather than fed from a central transmitter \u2014 which means the system degrades gracefully if individual modules fail, and emits across a broad, rapidly shifting frequency band that is exceptionally difficult for Russian radar warning receivers to detect or jam.<\/p>\n That last point is operationally significant. Russia fields the R-37M air-to-air missile on Su-35S fighters, a weapon optimized for tracking aircraft at long range by detecting their radar emissions. A pilot who cannot switch off the radar without going blind is at a structural disadvantage in that threat environment. The Gripen E addresses this through the Leonardo Skyward G infrared search and track sensor<\/a>: a passive, non-emitting thermal detector that can locate and track airborne targets \u2014 including cruise missiles and drones \u2014 without producing any radar signal for Russian EW systems to detect.<\/p>\n For Ukraine’s specific threat environment, those two sensor systems together represent a genuine generational advance. Russia’s primary offensive weapons against Ukrainian territory include ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and one-way attack drones \u2014 all of which present small radar cross-sections at low altitude, precisely the target category where older mechanically scanned array radars struggle. The ES-05 Raven’s wide field of view and frequency agility, combined with the Skyward G’s passive detection capability, give Ukraine an engagement chain for those targets that its existing fleet cannot fully replicate.<\/p>\n How the Gripen’s AESA Radar Works \u2014 and Why Ukraine Needs It<\/p>\n Understanding the technical distinction between the Gripen E’s radar and those on Ukraine’s current fleet requires a brief explanation of what makes AESA architectures different.<\/p>\n A mechanically scanned array radar \u2014 the type on Ukraine’s existing F-16s and Mirages \u2014 moves a single antenna dish physically to steer the radar beam. The dish has one transmitter, one receiver, and a mechanical gimbal that points it. This approach limits how quickly the beam can be repositioned, how many targets can be tracked simultaneously, and how effectively the system can handle modern electronic countermeasures.<\/p>\n An AESA replaces the dish and gimbal with hundreds to thousands of individual transmit\/receive elements, each with its own micro-transmitter and receiver built on gallium nitride semiconductor. A computer controls the timing of signals from each element, creating constructive interference that steers the beam electronically \u2014 with no moving parts \u2014 in microseconds rather than the milliseconds of mechanical motion. The result is a radar that can track dozens of targets simultaneously while dedicating separate beams to different tasks, and whose frequency-hopping across a broad band makes its emissions appear as background noise to most threat warning systems.<\/p>\n The Gripen E’s ES-05 Raven extends this architecture with its swashplate mechanism<\/a>: the antenna array itself can be physically repositioned \u00b120 degrees off the aircraft’s nose axis, and the electronic scanning range operates on top of that physical offset. The total field of view is correspondingly wider than any non-repositioning AESA on a comparable light fighter.<\/p>\n Paired with this is the MBDA Meteor beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile, of which each Gripen E can carry up to seven. The Meteor uses a throttleable ducted rocket (ramjet) motor that maintains thrust all the way to target intercept \u2014 a critical distinction from the solid-rocket AIM-120 AMRAAM already in Ukraine’s inventory, which coasts unpowered through much of its flight. That sustained energy retention gives the Meteor a “no-escape zone” \u2014 the sphere within which an evading target cannot outmaneuver the incoming missile \u2014 that independent analyses estimate at three to six times larger than the AIM-120’s<\/a>. The Meteor is also capable of engaging small, low-altitude targets including cruise missiles, which is directly relevant to Ukraine’s defensive priorities.<\/p>\n Saab’s EWS 39 electronic warfare suite<\/a> provides 360-degree missile approach warning \u2014 detecting threats from any direction, including from behind \u2014 which matters in the kind of sustained, high-threat-density environment Ukraine operates in.<\/p>\n Built for This War: Dispersed Basing and the Bas 90 Doctrine<\/p>\n Sweden designed the JAS 39 during the Cold War with a specific survival scenario in mind: Soviet strikes would destroy Sweden’s hardened air bases in the opening hours of a war, and the Swedish Air Force would need to keep flying from whatever improvised surfaces remained. The result was the Bas 90 (Flygbassystem 90) doctrine<\/a>, which planned 200 dispersed operating locations nationwide, including stretches of highway as short as 800 meters.<\/p>\n Every design decision in the aircraft reflects this requirement. The GE F414-GE-39E turbofan that powers the Gripen E develops 98 kilonewtons of thrust<\/a> \u2014 23 percent more than the older Volvo RM12 in the Gripen C\/D \u2014 while the internal fuel capacity increased from roughly 3.4 tonnes in the C\/D to approximately 5.4 tonnes in the E, a gain of nearly 60 percent. That fuel increase extends the aircraft’s endurance and ferry range without requiring external tanks that would complicate rapid ground operations. The entire refueling and rearming sequence was designed around a six-person team, including personnel without extensive aviation technical training, completing the cycle in approximately 10 minutes on a road strip.<\/p>\n Ukraine has been running the same playbook since 2022. As Breaking Defense reported in an October 2025 analysis<\/a>, Ukraine never abandoned the Soviet Air Force doctrine of agile dispersed operations, and its fighters have shuttled between western airfields since the war began to avoid Russian targeting of fixed bases. Bronk’s RUSI analysis makes the doctrinal alignment explicit: the Gripen is not just technically capable \u2014 it was designed for exactly the operational logic Ukraine is already executing.<\/p>\n The aircraft’s survivability architecture extends this further. Its open software-defined systems design allows operators \u2014 including Ukraine’s own engineers \u2014 to develop and insert new software applications, threat libraries, and hardware integrations without requiring Saab’s involvement for each modification. For a military that has demonstrated an ability to rapidly innovate drone integration, electronic countermeasures, and targeting software under wartime pressure, that open architecture<\/a> is not a marketing point; it is a meaningful operational tool.<\/p>\n How Europe Bankrolled Ukraine’s Most Advanced Fighter Without Washington<\/p>\n The financing structure behind the Gripen E acquisition may prove as consequential as the aircraft itself \u2014 and it is the aspect of this deal that matters most beyond the specifics of airpower.<\/p>\n Ukraine is drawing on the EU’s \u20ac90 billion Ukraine Support Loan<\/a>, formalized by the EU Council on April 23, 2026, under Regulation (EU) 2026\/467. Of the \u20ac90 billion total, \u20ac60 billion is allocated to defence procurement, and \u20ac28.3 billion of that is available for disbursement in 2026. The loan is financed through EU common borrowing on capital markets, backed by the EU budget, with repayment structured against Russian war reparations owed to Ukraine.<\/p>\n The mechanism’s procurement rules follow a cascading principle<\/a>: weapons and equipment must be sourced first from Ukrainian, EU, or EEA-EFTA manufacturers. Third countries with bilateral security partnerships with the EU \u2014 including the United Kingdom \u2014 are also eligible as priority sources if they contribute to the loan’s borrowing costs. Because the Gripen E is manufactured principally in Sweden (an EU member) with major UK industrial participation, it falls cleanly within this framework.<\/p>\n More than 30 percent of each Gripen E airframe is manufactured in the UK, according to the UK Defence Investment Plan published June 30<\/a>, citing the Leonardo ES-05 Raven radar and landing gear as UK-supplied components, along with contributions from more than 50 UK-based companies including Saab UK in Fareham and Leonardo UK in Edinburgh \u2014 supporting over 5,000 British jobs. UK Defence Minister Luke Pollard called it a demonstration of confidence in UK defence industry. The fact that the UK’s industrial participation qualifies under the EU loan rules \u2014 despite the UK no longer being an EU member \u2014 reflects both the bilateral security agreement the UK signed with the EU and the deliberate design of the loan framework to retain UK industry within the European defence supply chain.<\/p>\n This matters at scale because the Gripen deal is the first major weapons platform \u2014 as distinct from ammunition, drones, and air defence systems \u2014 to be financed through the Ukraine Support Loan. The European Commission began disbursements on June 25 and June 30, 2026<\/a>, with initial tranches covering macro-financial assistance and drone procurement. The Gripen contract extends the loan’s application to a $2.5 billion manned fighter program, establishing whether European governments can collectively finance the transfer of high-end air combat platforms to an active war zone without relying on U.S. Foreign Military Sales processes or congressional authorization.<\/p>\n That question will be at the center of the NATO Defence Industry Forum in Ankara on July 7<\/a>, where Zelensky is confirmed to attend and Rutte has publicly committed to announcing tens of billions in new defence contracts.<\/p>\n Two-Phase Transition: What Arrives First \u2014 and Why<\/p>\n The contract’s phased structure reflects a deliberate operational judgment. Alongside the new-build Gripen E purchase, Sweden is donating 16 older Gripen C\/D fighters from active Swedish Air Force inventory, with those deliveries beginning in early 2027 \u2014 roughly two years before the Gripen E arrives.<\/p>\n The logic is sequenced exposure. The donated C\/D aircraft give Ukrainian pilots, technicians, armourers, and maintenance crews time to build familiarity with Gripen systems, ground procedures, and NATO-standard weapons before the considerably more complex Gripen E enters service. The C\/Ds arrive pre-configured with Link 16 tactical datalink architecture and Western IFF (Identification Friend or Foe) systems, making them immediately interoperable rather than downgraded export variants.<\/p>\n The Gripen E is not a routine upgrade of the C\/D \u2014 it is a different aircraft that happens to share a visual silhouette. The fuselage is larger, accommodating the 60 percent internal fuel increase. The engine is a different design producing significantly more thrust. The cockpit replaces three separate displays with a single wide-area touchscreen. The hardpoints increase from the C\/D’s configuration to 10 stations, capable of carrying seven Meteors alongside a full suite of air-to-ground precision weapons. The 24-month bridge between C\/D donation and E delivery is therefore not administrative convenience; it is the time Ukraine needs to build a dedicated Gripen training pipeline and maintenance ecosystem before those differences matter under operational pressure.<\/p>\n Whether the longer-term ambition of 100\u2013150 Gripen E\/F aircraft materializes depends on the trajectory of the conflict, Ukraine’s financing access, and Saab’s production capacity. Saab’s total Gripen E manufacturing throughput<\/a> across all customers \u2014 Sweden (60 on order), Brazil (36 ordered), Thailand (ordered), Colombia (17 ordered in November 2025) \u2014 is approximately 20 to 30 aircraft per year, constrained by GE F414 engine supply chain throughput and Leonardo AESA radar production capacity. Ukraine becomes a fifth customer in that queue, and its 2029\u20132030 delivery window reflects the industrial reality of that queue, not Ukrainian urgency.<\/p>\n Ukraine’s Broader Western Air Force Architecture<\/p>\n Ukraine currently manages arguably the most complex military aviation sustainment challenge in the world: simultaneously operating Soviet-era MiG-29s, Su-27s, Su-24s, and Su-25s alongside F-16AM+ fighters from four NATO donor nations, a small fleet of French Mirage 2000-5Fs, and the two Saab 340 airborne early-warning aircraft equipped with Erieye radar that Sweden donated earlier.<\/p>\n