Sweden does not plan to supply Gripen fighter jets to Ukraine

The Swedish side has no plans to transfer Gripen fighter jets to Ukraine. About it said Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson on TV4.

“Sweden is a geographically large country, we have to defend ourselves and we are not part of NATO yet,” Kristersson said. He explained that this decision is “a balance between what we can leave for them and what we must have ourselves.” At the same time, the Prime Minister noted that Sweden is now “part of the so-called F-16 coalition,” which, together with 14 countries, provides Ukraine with “the ability to fly.”

Earlier, the press secretary of the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky Sergey Nikiforov declared on the air of the Rada TV channel that the transfer of Swedish JAS Gripen fighters to Ukraine is still being considered theoretically, since for this it is necessary to take three more steps – testing fighters, training pilots, political consent and the very provision of aircraft. At the same time, among the “very necessary results” in Sweden, Zelensky called the decision to produce Swedish CV90 infantry fighting vehicles in Ukraine.

August 20 at a joint press conference in the Netherlands and. O. Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Zelensky reportedthat Ukraine received a guarantee from the Netherlands and Denmark on the transfer of American fourth-generation F-16 fighters to it. On August 17, the US State Department approved the re-export of combat aircraft to Ukraine for European allies. Zelensky reported on 42 aircraft, however, as the NOS TV channel reported, Rutte has so far confirmed only the very fact of the upcoming deliveries of fighters to Kiev, noting that 42 is the total number of F-16s in the Netherlands.