Sweden will donate 16 JAS 39 Gripen C/D multirole fighter jets to Ukraine armed with long-range Meteor air-to-air missiles, with deliveries set to begin in early 2027, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson announced at Uppsala Air Base on May 28 during a joint press conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
🇸🇪🇺🇦 The Gripens are coming.
Russia tried to break Ukraine from the skies. Ukraine is now building air power with Swedish fighters: buying up to 20 Gripen E/F for its future air force, while Sweden will donate 16 Gripen C/D.
A new chapter for Ukraine’s air defence. (1/8) pic.twitter.com/HV3eeIZ6sV
— Pål Jonson (@PlJonson) May 28, 2026
Ukraine will purchase up to 20 of the more advanced Gripen E/F variants, financed through €2.5 billion ($2.9 billion) from the European Union’s Ukraine Support Loan. Zelensky said Ukraine intends to eventually acquire all 150 Gripens discussed with Sweden, funded through the €90 billion EU loan package finalized on April 23. “We will do this step by step. We need these aircraft, and this is a new page for Ukraine,” Zelensky said.
Pavlo Palisa, Deputy Head of Ukraine’s Presidential Office, confirmed the first C/D batch will include Meteor beyond-visual-range (BVR) air-to-air missiles. “The Gripen with Meteor missiles will be the ‘long arm’ of our aircraft, allowing us to push carriers of Russian guided aerial bombs away from the front,” Palisa said.
The Meteor, developed by MBDA, uses a solid-fuel ramjet to maintain speeds above Mach 4 with an effective range exceeding 124 miles. It directly counters Russia’s R-37M missile (NATO designation AA-13 Axehead), which Su-35S Flanker multirole fighters and MiG-31BM Foxhound interceptors have used to engage Ukrainian aircraft beyond the effective reach of the AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles carried by Ukraine’s F-16s.
The Gripen transfer arrives as a broader Swedish air architecture is already operating over Ukraine. SOFX reported in March that Ukraine’s Saab 340 airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft, equipped with the Erieye radar, appeared to have entered active service. The Gripen is designed to share a datalink with that platform, allowing Meteor missiles to receive mid-course guidance updates from the AEW&C aircraft throughout flight, without the fighter activating its own radar.
Training of Ukrainian pilots and technicians on the Gripen is already underway and will expand this fall, Jonson said. Saab confirmed it has not yet signed any contract or received an order for the Gripen E/F, with negotiations expected to conclude ahead of a 2030 delivery target.
