A study by the British think tank Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) named the Saab Gripen as the best fighter to send to Ukraine as the country battles Russia.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been asking his partners in Europe to send Western fighter jets. Ukrainian officials, including the armed forces, have already said that current aircraft (Su-27, MiG-29, Su-24 and Su-25) are not adequate to fight Russia, which has much more modern planes.
According to the authors of report, the Swedish Gripen is “by far the most suitable candidate” among the Western fighter jets to be sent to Ukraine (if that eventually happens). They claim that the JAS-39 was conceived by Saab precisely to face Russia and note that the aircraft was prepared to operate from improvised bases on highways.
Indeed, the Swedes and their Finnish partners often train operations at roadside bases. The tactic is called force dispersion and allows air forces to continue operating even if they lose their bases, priority targets in a war.
A Gripen can land on a stretch of 500 meters and take off from a slightly longer runway. It can be easily rearmed and refueled in just 10 minutes by a team of five people, only one of whom needs to be an experienced mechanic, points out RUSI.
“Conceptually, the Swedish Air Force has always emphasized low-level air superiority tactics from dispersed bases, similar to how the Ukrainian Air Force currently operates, and so the Gripen was designed with ground equipment and maintenance requirements compatible with this approach, points out the study. “The Gripen C/D electronic warfare suite is also optimized specifically to counter Russian fighter jets and SAM radars.”
“Other factors that make the Gripen particularly suited to Ukrainian operational needs is that it can fire the very long-range European Meteor missile, which, thanks to its ramjet propulsion design, is less affected by being launched at low height and low speed. than traditional rocket-powered missiles such as the R-27 or AIM-120 AMRAAM, and the Gripen was also designed from the ground up with anti-ship capability.”
The report's authors also note that the transfer of new aircraft, as well as that of anti-aircraft missiles (SAM) and self-propelled anti-aircraft guns, are key to preventing a new Russian offensive, which, if uncontested, could lead to a dramatic shift to the course of war.
This week Russia withdrew its troops from Kherson, in another important victory for Kiev. In addition, Moscow failed to achieve air supremacy since the invasion in February, thanks to Western for Ukrainians with SAMs of various categories and capabilities. Together, Ukrainian pilots have adopted the most diverse tactics to circumvent Russian fighter jets and missiles.
“Since April, VKS [Russian Aerospace Forces] pilots have been extremely reluctant to aggressively fight to enter Ukrainian airspace due to the losses incurred during the first attempts,” observe the RUSI. “The threat of Ukrainian SAM and MANPADS engagements shaped the behavior and significantly constrained the effectiveness of Russian pilots.”
According to the portal Oryx, which has documented the losses in the conflict in Eastern Europe, the Russia has already lost 63 aircraft, including modern aircraft such as the Su-35, Su-30SM and Su-34. Ukraine, on the other hand, lost 55 aircraft.
