Ukraine to acquire 20 Saab Gripen E/F fighter jets from Sweden via €2.5 billion EU loan.

Ukraine is moving toward acquiring up to 20 Saab Gripen E/F fighters from Sweden under Stockholm’s newly approved Support Package 22, a decision announced on May 28, 2026, that would sharply expand Kyiv’s ability to survive and fight inside Russia’s heavily contested air-defense and electronic warfare environment. Financed through a €2.5 billion EU Ukraine Support Loan and reinforced by the transfer of up to 16 Gripen C/D fighters from Swedish inventories beginning in 2027, the package gives Ukraine a scalable path toward building one of Europe’s largest Western-origin tactical fighter fleets while strengthening NATO’s northern and eastern airpower integration.

The Gripen E/F combines long-range Meteor missiles, advanced electronic warfare systems, passive infrared detection, and dispersed highway-based operations into a fighter optimized for high-intensity warfare against a technologically advanced opponent. Designed around Sweden’s Cold War-era Bas 90 doctrine, the aircraft can operate from damaged or improvised airstrips with small support teams, giving Ukraine a survivable air combat platform specifically suited to enduring Russian missile strikes, GPS jamming, and electromagnetic attacks against fixed airbases.

Related topic: Sweden approves transfer of 16 Gripen C/D fighter jets to Ukraine to counter Russian missile attacks

The Gripen E/F will significantly expand Ukraine's combat capabilities by carrying up to 7.2 tons of external payload across 10 hardpoints, enabling the simultaneous deployment of Meteor, IRIS-T, and AMRAAM missiles, as well as precision-guided strike munitions. (Picture source: Saab)

On May 28, 2026, Sweden approved negotiations for the sale of up to 20 Saab Gripen E/F fighters to Ukraine under Support Package 22 valued at SEK 25.2 billion, marking the start of a new era for the Ukrainian Air Force. Ukraine intends to finance the acquisition through €2.5 billion from the EU Ukraine Support Loan mechanism, while Stockholm simultaneously authorized the transfer of up to 16 Gripen C/D fighters from its active inventories beginning in 2027, with IRIS-T, AIM-120 AMRAAM, and MBDA Meteor missiles. The Gripen E/F sale follows the October 22, 2025, letter of intent signed in Linköping by Ulf Kristersson and Volodymyr Zelensky covering a possible Ukrainian requirement for 100 to 150 Gripen E fighters, larger than all previous Gripen export programs combined.

Sweden simultaneously approved the procurement of replacement Gripen Es for its own air force to offset C/D transfers, as Gripen E/F deliveries remain scheduled from 2030 because Saab production lines are already committed to Swedish and Brazilian orders and constrained by F414 engine manufacturing, avionics integration, and supplier chain throughput. The Gripen E/F incorporates major redesigns compared with the Gripen C/D variants despite retaining the same aerodynamic configuration and single-engine layout. The Gripen E/F uses a General Electric F414-GE-39E turbofan producing close to 98 kN, or 22,000 lbf, with afterburner, compared with roughly 80 kN from the Volvo RM12 installed on Gripen C/D fighters.

Internal fuel capacity rises from roughly 3.4 tons to approximately 5.4 tons, while maximum takeoff weight increases from roughly 14,000 kg to approximately 16,500 kg, extending endurance and payload flexibility. The E/F also carries ten external hardpoints supporting Meteor, IRIS-T, AMRAAM, Taurus KEPD 350, anti-ship missiles, guided bombs, reconnaissance pods, and external fuel tanks. Like the C/D, Saab optimized the Gripen E/F around reduced maintenance manpower requirements, lower flight-hour operating costs, and dispersed operations from highway strips under Sweden’s Bas 90 doctrine, developed during the Cold War around assumptions of Soviet strikes against fixed airfields during the opening phase of a conflict, an idea that can now be described as prescient. 

The Gripen E’s sensor and electronic warfare architecture was also designed for sustained operations inside contested electromagnetic environments. The fighter integrates the Leonardo ES-05 Raven AESA radar equipped with a mechanically repositioned swashplate antenna, increasing off-axis coverage beyond conventional fixed-array AESA systems. The Gripen E/F also carries the Skyward-G infrared search and track system, enabling passive target detection without radar emissions. Saab’s Arexis electronic warfare suite, for its part, combines digital radar warning receivers, active jamming, emitter geolocation capability, automated decoy management, and distributed antenna arrays providing 360-degree surveillance coverage.

The Gripen E/F was engineered to continue operations under degraded radar performance, interrupted datalinks, and GPS interference, conditions directly relevant to Ukraine, where Russian Krasukha, Zhitel, Tirada, Pole-21, and Murmansk-BN electronic warfare systems are routinely employed against drones, aviation assets, navigation systems, and communications networks. Therefore, Sweden’s package also includes the procurement of additional electromagnetic warfare equipment intended to strengthen Ukrainian defensive capability against incoming Russian air threats and electronic attacks. The missile package will also substantially expand Ukraine’s beyond-visual-range combat capability compared with its current MiG-29 and Su-27 inventory.

The Gripen E can simultaneously carry Meteor missiles, IRIS-T short-range missiles, external fuel tanks, and precision-guided strike weapons without major mission-specific reconfiguration. The Meteor uses a throttleable ramjet propulsion system rather than a conventional rocket motor, allowing sustained energy retention during terminal engagement and extending effective range beyond older R-27 and R-77 missiles currently fielded by Ukrainian and Russian forces. The Gripen E/F’s mission system architecture also supports relatively rapid integration of NATO-standard munitions, including Taurus KEPD 350, SPEAR-class weapons, GBU-series guided bombs, and anti-ship missiles, depending on future Ukrainian procurement decisions.

Maximum external payload reaches approximately 7.2 tons, while the fighter’s datalink network supports cooperative target sharing and coordinated beyond-visual-range engagements between multiple fighters across dispersed sectors. Combined with passive infrared detection and integrated electronic warfare capability, these systems would complicate Russian tactical aviation operations near contested sectors. Ukraine’s operational environment since February 2022 increasingly favors aircraft like the Gripen, designed around dispersal, simplified logistics, and rapid sortie regeneration rather than dependence on large permanent airbases vulnerable to missile attack.

Russian strike campaigns have repeatedly targeted Ukrainian runways, hardened shelters, maintenance depots, fuel storage facilities, and command infrastructure with cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, drones, and glide bombs to reduce sortie generation capability. The Gripen’s operating doctrine directly addresses these vulnerabilities through Sweden’s Bas 90 road-based system supported by small technical detachments instead of centralized maintenance formations. Saab historically promoted turnaround procedures requiring close to ten minutes for air-to-air configurations, with refueling and rearming conducted by small conscript teams using limited support equipment.

Maintenance procedures also emphasize modular replacement of damaged systems rather than depot-level servicing, reducing infrastructure requirements and simplifying wartime aircraft recovery. When you think about it, Ukraine’s wartime logistics environment increasingly resembles the dispersed high-intensity conflict scenario around which the Gripen was originally developed. However, like many military assets, industrial production capacity remains the principal factor constraining future Ukrainian Gripen E/F acquisition. Sweden originally ordered 60 Gripen Es, while Brazil separately ordered 36 Gripen E/F fighters under a 2014 contract involving local assembly and technology transfer.

A future Ukrainian requirement reaching 100 to 150 fighters would exceed every previous Gripen export order combined and require substantial expansion of Swedish aerospace manufacturing throughput, subcontractor output, and supplier chain capacity, perhaps via Saab’s factories in Canada. Saab’s production system already supports simultaneous Swedish and Brazilian force-generation schedules, while bottlenecks affecting F414 engine production, AESA radar manufacturing, avionics integration, and electronic warfare components continue limiting expansion speed.

Stockholm’s simultaneous decision to procure replacement Gripen E fighters for its Air Force is intended to prevent reductions in Swedish air defense readiness during future C/D transfers and preserve continuity for Sweden’s combat aviation sector amid increasing Gripen demand following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Sweden confirmed that training programs for Ukrainian pilots and technicians have already begun and will intensify ahead of the Gripen C/D introduction from 2027 onward. Ukraine’s transition pathway is divided into two phases, beginning with Gripen C/D fielding before a migration toward Gripen E/F operations once newly-produced aircraft become available from 2030.

Transition between the variants, however, is simplified by shared cockpit logic, overlapping logistics architecture, and similar flight procedures, although the Gripen E introduces a revised avionics suite, larger fuel capacity, modified landing gear geometry, and more advanced electronic warfare systems. Swedish doctrine historically relied on distributed technical teams operating independently from centralized maintenance hubs, requiring Ukraine to establish domestic infrastructure for software support, spare parts storage, mission planning, weapons integration, and long-term sustainment.

Long-term operating costs will depend heavily on sortie rates, missile expenditure, survivability of dispersed operating locations, and reliability of NATO-standard spare part supply chains during prolonged combat operations. Despite these drawbacks (which, let us not forget, can be remedied), a future Ukrainian Gripen fleet approaching 100 aircraft would create one of the largest Western-origin tactical fighter inventories in Eastern Europe outside the United States and deepen military-industrial integration between Ukraine, Sweden, and NATO’s northern flank.

Written by Jérôme Brahy

Jérôme Brahy is a defense analyst and documentalist at Army Recognition. He specializes in naval modernization, aviation, drones, armored vehicles, and artillery, with a focus on strategic developments in the United States, China, Ukraine, Russia, Türkiye, and Belgium. His analyses go beyond the facts, providing context, identifying key actors, and explaining why defense news matters on a global scale.