{"id":1034038,"date":"2026-06-18T06:56:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T06:56:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1034038\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T06:56:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T06:56:16","slug":"finland-to-buy-us-glide-bombs-for-f-35s-ministry-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1034038\/","title":{"rendered":"Finland to buy US glide bombs for F-35s, ministry says"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">HELSINKI, June 18 (Reuters) &#8211; Finland will buy GBU-53 SDB II glide bombs \u200cfrom the United States for \u200cits F-35 fighter jets, the Nordic country&#8217;s defence \u200bministry said in a statement on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The purchase adds a new air-to-ground capability to NATO-member Finland&#8217;s F-35 fleet and \u200csupplements its $9.4 \u2060billion acquisition of 64 F-35 jets from Lockheed Martin.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u2022 The \u2060GBU-53 SDB II is a precision-guided glide bomb capable of striking moving \u200btargets at \u200bmedium range in \u200badverse weather conditions, \u200cthe defence ministry said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u2022 Its small size allows multiple SDB II munitions to be carried simultaneously on a single F-35.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u2022 The bombs \u200cwill be manufactured by \u200bRaytheon, a unit \u200bof U.S. defence \u200bcontractor RTX.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u2022 The package \u200ccovers spare parts, documentation, \u200btransport, training, \u200brepair and support services.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u2022 Defence Minister Antti Hakkanen said the purchase represents \u200ba \u200cnew capability that strengthens Finland&#8217;s defences &#8220;in \u200bdemanding conditions.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">(Reporting by Essi Lehto, editing \u200bby Terje Solsvik)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HELSINKI, June 18 (Reuters) &#8211; Finland will buy GBU-53 SDB II glide bombs \u200cfrom the United States for&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1034039,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5311],"tags":[71961,12165,769,285156,5604,71963,49,978,659],"class_list":["post-1034038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-defence-ministry","tag-fighter-jets","tag-finland","tag-glide-bombs","tag-lockheed-martin","tag-nordic-country","tag-united-states","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116769809165281892","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1034038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1034038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1034038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1034039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1034038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1034038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1034038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}