Ukraine will receive Gripen fighter jets from Sweden, the Ministry of Defense confirmed on Monday.
During an interview with the BBC’s Ukrainian edition, First Deputy Defense Minister Lt. Gen. Ivan Havrylyuk confirmed that the Gripen is among the jets Kyiv will receive when asked by a reporter.
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The reporter first asked about the timeframe and quantity, to which Havrylyuk said they will be seen in the sky when they arrive, without disclosing the details.
When pressed about whether that includes the Gripen or the F-16s only, Havrylyuk said the reporter “named the correct list.”
The transfer of Gripen fighters from Sweden has been in discussion since at least September 2024, after Kyiv initially turned down the proposal in July that year.
Sweden currently has just under 100 AS 39C/D Gripen variants in its fleet, with plans to increase this to 120 within the next five years – 60 of the older AS 39C/D Gripen models and 60 of the modernized AS 39E variant.
The transfer of Saab JAS 39 Gripens – light, single-engine supersonic multirole fighters – from Sweden to Ukraine has been in discussion since at least September 2024, with Swedish Defense Minister Pål Jonsson offering to provide Ukrainian pilots with “familiarization training” as early as May 2023.
However, Kyiv initially turned down the proposal in July 2024 due to concerns about the feasibility of managing two different, complex aircraft systems simultaneously. At that time, Ukraine was entirely focused on implementing its F-16 program.
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In May this year, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense revealed that it was in talks with Sweden’s aerospace firm Saab to upgrade its Soviet-era jets. Ukraine’s then-defense minister told the public that discussions about transferring Swedish Gripens to Ukraine were still ongoing.
The Gripen is seen as a valuable addition to Ukraine’s aerial capabilities. It stands out for its extreme agility – with forward canard controls that make it well-suited to within-visual-range “dogfights” in the air.
On Friday, Hungarian Gripens serving with the NATO Air Policing Force in Lithuania were scrambled to intercept five Russian fighter jets detected over the Baltic Sea west of the Latvian coast.
This incident is one of several violations of NATO airspace by Russian drones and aircraft in recent weeks.
Sweden, which only joined NATO in March 2024, announced a record increase in its defense spending on Sept. 17 – citing the “multi-dimensional” threat Russia poses to both Swedish and European security.
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