With deliveries of the F-16 fighter jet not expected until next year, Ukraine has resumed a push to obtain Swedish Gripen warplanes as it tries to modernize its air force and secure an advantage against Russia in the skies.
“We are getting closer to the fact that Gripen fighters will appear in our sky,” President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, who traveled to Sweden over the weekend and reached a more tangible agreement on Saturday involving the supply of armored vehicles, said in his overnight address.
Ukraine has received Soviet-era jets from Poland and Slovakia, but air superiority in the war remains up for grabs, with neither Kyiv nor Moscow decisively dominating air space since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
And though Ukraine is on track to receive American-made F-16 jets, this won’t happen in time to play a role in its current counteroffensive.
Mr. Zelensky cast his talks on the Gripens as a breakthrough and said he would soon share more details.
Persons:
Volodymyr Zelensky, Zelensky, Ulf Kristersson
Organizations:
Gripen, Russia, Mr
Locations:
Ukraine, Sweden, Soviet, Poland, Slovakia, Moscow, Russia