Zelenskyj heads to Uppsala, Gripen question returns, Sweden faces readiness test

• VG cites Swedish media reporting that Zelenskyj will visit Uppsala on Thursday.
• The reported trip is widely connected to a possible Swedish donation of JAS 39 Gripen fighter jets.
• Any transfer would reopen the trade-off between support for Ukraine and Sweden’s own air-defence capacity.
• A Gripen move would also place Saab and Swedish defence policy at the centre of wartime decision-making.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj is expected to visit Uppsala on Thursday, with the trip likely tied to the long-running question of Swedish fighter jets for Ukraine. VG reports, citing Swedish media, that the visit is believed to concern a donation of Swedish combat aircraft.

That makes Uppsala more than a ceremonial stop. Sweden has spent months circling the Gripen issue without giving a clear public answer on whether aircraft can be spared, under what conditions, or how quickly any transfer could happen. The JAS 39 Gripen sits at the centre of Sweden’s own air-defence planning, and the country has only recently entered NATO while still rebuilding capabilities after decades of cuts. Sending aircraft abroad would therefore not resemble a warehouse drawdown. It would mean taking assets from a relatively small national fleet, training Ukrainian crews and ground staff, arranging maintenance and munitions, and accepting a thinner margin at home.

The politics are equally concrete. A confirmed Zelenskyj visit would raise the cost of ambiguity for Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson’s government. Stockholm has already supplied artillery, armoured vehicles, air-defence systems and large financial packages to Kyiv. Fighter jets sit in another category: they are expensive, scarce and tightly bound to national readiness. If Gripens are on the table, the government will need to explain whether Sweden plans to replace them with new orders, how long that would take, and whether taxpayers are being asked to fund both a donation abroad and a replenishment program at home.

The visit would also underline how Swedish defence policy has shifted from procurement and deterrence into direct wartime supply. Saab, the manufacturer behind the Gripen, has long marketed the aircraft as a flexible system suited to dispersed operations and austere conditions, attributes that have made it a recurring candidate in the Ukraine debate. A political decision to transfer jets would turn that sales argument into state policy. The line between supporting an ally under attack and using national industry as an arm of war would become thinner, and much more visible.

For now, the public facts remain narrow: a reported visit, a city, a day, and a familiar aircraft model that keeps returning to the centre of the conversation. If Zelenskyj does arrive in Uppsala, the cameras will be pointed at handshakes; the harder question is how many Swedish jets remain behind them.

Källor: VG