Swedish JAS 39 Gripen multirole fighter has gone all the way from one of the candidates to reinforce Ukraine's future aircraft fleet to the second most promising option after F-16 which the Ukrainian Air Force will pursue.
"General Oleshchuk [Ukrainian Air Force Commander Mykola Oleshchuk] returned from the trial tests and said, we will be fighting for Gripen, too. They are very universal in terms of weaponry, they are very easy to use and land on an ordinary highway," Defense Minister of Ukraine Oleksii Reznikov told journalists during today's briefing.
Read more: Sweden Says No to Gripen Fighters For Ukraine But Gives a Condition
F-16, as mentioned, will remain the primary aircraft because it is "the most optimal combat aircraft for the Armed Forces of Ukraine." Gripen, on the other hand, is more suitable than other candidates, Eurofighter Typhoon and Dassault Rafale, in the context of Ukraine's defense challenges.
A reasonable question, why would Ukraine need one more kind of multirole fighter? Here we should consider each factor separately: how badly Ukraine needs fighter aircraft right now, how many of them are available around the world, and for how long they will be able to remain in service.
The most important thing to keep in mind is that the best resolution to the issue of the Ukrainian Air Force fleet update is the two-phase approach. For the first phase, you get the "fighter of the Victory," and the "fighter after the Victory" for the second.
Earlier the Ukrainian Air Force Command estimated the number of multirole fighters the country needs at 180 planes, or 128 as the bare minimum. Meanwhile, the number of F-16 pledged to Ukraine by partners is 42 from the Netherlands, 19 from Denmark, and up to 12 from Norway.
Not all of the donated F-16s would be combat-capable, some of them not even flight-capable (those will become a source of spare parts). All combined, it's only 73 jets supplied over a long period of time – the Danish ones, for example, will be delivered in batches by 2025.
We should also consider the fact that those are second-hand planes that were manufactured in the 1980s, early 1990s at most. Their service life is up until the mid-2030s, approximately. The experience of Romania testifies to that, is now the country is looking for F-35s to replace the F-16s. Moreover, those are just peacetime service conditions, but during the war, the lifespan of combat aircraft shortens drastically.
That said, there is an important issue of where to get additional aviation. In this situation, it would seem like ordering new ones would be the choice. However, Lockheed Martin currently has its production lines busy with F-16V Block 70/72 reserved for other customers, with the nearest delivery possible no sooner than in 2027-2028. That is not to mention a single F-16V would cost at least USD 162.5 million per unit.
Against this background, Saab JAS 39 Gripen has a particular, very odd advantage – it has seen no customer for a long time. The production facilities are not overloaded, and theoretically, there is a possibility that new Gripens would be delivered to the Armed Forces faster than, let's say, a brand-new F-16V.
Also, most importantly, Saab is willing to cooperate when it comes to localization of production in the customer's country, which will be extremely important for Ukraine after the Victory over the russian invaders.
Read more: The Air Force Spokesperson Reveals What Ukraine Needs Apart From F-16 Aircraft
