Ukraine Bypasses France for Gripen Jets

Ukraine will buy 20 Gripen E/F fighter jets from Sweden’s Saab for €2.5 billion. Sweden will separately donate 16 older Gripen C/D aircraft worth €1.9 billion. Announced on 28 May at Saab’s Linköping facility, it is the largest single weapons purchase financed through EU borrowing. The money goes to Stockholm, not to France’s Rafale, and not to the now-collapsed Franco-German FCAS fighter programme.

A Grant Dressed as a Loan

The purchase runs through the EU’s Ukraine Support Loan, a €90 billion credit line adopted in February 2026 under enhanced cooperation. That EU mechanism allows a group of willing member states to move ahead when unanimity is blocked. In this case, 24 of the 27 participated, getting around Hungary’s veto. Of the total, €60 billion is for military procurement and €30 billion for budget support.

For smaller member states, the mechanism matters as much as the aircraft. Enhanced cooperation is the EU’s way of keeping policy alive when one capital can block the room. It does not remove national choice, but it changes the balance between unanimity and collective action.

The loan terms are unusually soft. Ukraine’s finance ministry says the EU covers all interest. Repayment of the principal is tied only to Russian reparations, money that may never arrive. In practical terms, this is a grant in the legal form of a loan.

The European Commission still keeps approval over each weapons purchase before funds are released. Drones come first, in June. The Gripen purchase would be the largest single transaction by a wide margin.

FCAS Collapses, Saab Steps In

Two weeks before the Gripen announcement, Airbus Defence CEO Michael Schöllhorn named Saab as a possible partner for next-generation European combat aircraft in a Stockholm speech. FCAS, the Future Combat Air System, was supposed to be the Franco-German sixth-generation fighter. As a manned aircraft project, it is now effectively finished.

Dassault CEO Éric Trappier ended negotiations with Airbus in April. Airbus now proposes building two separate fighters, one shaped around French requirements and one around German requirements.

Saab is not arriving from nowhere. It already has a German defence foothold through a €1.2 billion contract for its Arexis electronic warfare system on the Eurofighter. What the Ukraine deal gives Saab is something harder to buy: combat validation.

The Gripen has never been used in a shooting war. If it performs over Ukraine, Saab’s argument to Airbus becomes much stronger. Saab CEO Micael Johansson says no formal discussions with Airbus are under way. The commercial pressure is visible all the same.

What Hasn’t Been Solved

No formal contract has yet been signed. The donation of 16 C/D aircraft depends on the E/F purchase being concluded. The Gripen E uses a General Electric F414 engine, which means every export needs US approval under ITAR, the International Traffic in Arms Regulations. That approval has not been publicly confirmed.

Production is the next constraint. Saab builds roughly 15 Gripens a year and plans to scale up to 20-30. The framework agreement covers 100-150 aircraft in total. At maximum output, that is five years of production, assuming every other customer waits.

The most important part of the package may be the Meteor missile. RUSI analyst Justin Bronk argues it is the only Western air-to-air missile with enough range to threaten Su-34s launching glide bombs 60-100 km behind the front line. Sweden’s defence minister named Meteor in the weapons package, but integration on the older C/D airframes remains unconfirmed.

France co-produces the Meteor. Its Rafale also fits EU-origin procurement rules more neatly than a Gripen powered by an American engine. Yet no senior French official has publicly commented on EU funds financing a Swedish competitor. Paris spent years building European defence instruments. The first major purchase enabled by those instruments goes to Stockholm.

Two questions now decide whether the deal closes: whether Washington grants ITAR approval for the GE engine, and whether Saab’s single production line can deliver quickly enough.