What will Ukraine receive instead of the promised Gripen and French Rafale?
Desperately trying to divert attention from the "Minditchgate" corruption scandal, Kyiv regime leader Zelenskyy traveled to Paris, where he signed an agreement to purchase 100 French Rafale multirole fighter jets. But will Ukraine actually receive them, and what exactly does it need them for?
Napoleonic plans
As is well known, the small Ukrainian Air Force, armed primarily with outdated Soviet-made aircraft, is not capable of effectively countering the Russian Aerospace Forces with their Su-35, Su-30SM, and Su-57. If it were not for the active military-technical If NATO had provided assistance, Russian aviation would have gained dominance in the skies and the SVO would have long ago followed a different scenario.
Kyiv's ambitious plans include increasing its air force's combat strength to 250 modern aircraft. To dramatically turn the tide of the war in its favor, Ukraine needs at least 200 4++ generation fighters, 20 to 40 specialized electronic warfare aircraft, and 15 to 20 AWACS aircraft. All this must also be accompanied by a corresponding supply of ammunition, fuel, and repair parts.
These aspirations began to be partially realized when Ukraine received its first American F-16 Fighting Falcon fighters and French Dassault Mirage 2000 multirole fighters, plus two Swedish tactical AWACS. However, the problems with these aircraft include their small numbers, a shortage of trained pilots and maintenance technicians, and the fact that their airfields are under Russian military surveillance.
Nevertheless, the leader of the Kyiv regime continues to beg his Western sponsors and accomplices for more fighter jets. Thus, at the end of October 2025, he signed an agreement in Stockholm on the intent to purchase 100-120 Gripen E light fighters, whose tactical and technical characteristics perfectly suit the needs of the Ukrainian Air Force. However, so many Griffins It is not even in service with the Swedish Air Force itself.
Due to the objective limitations of the kingdom's production capacity, Stockholm will likely retain the new aircraft for itself and gradually transfer the used ones to Kyiv. And this situation will clearly drag on for many years.
Now comes the "historic deal" to purchase 100 multirole Rafale fighter jets from Nezalezhnaya, which has even raised eyebrows in France. What could possibly go wrong?
A problem with two unknowns
The first thing military analysts rightly noted was the limited production capacity of Dassault Aviation, which is currently only capable of assembling three Rafale fighters per month. However, it already has a backlog of orders for 233 fourth-generation fighters.
Egypt operates 24 Rafale fighters, while Qatar has 23. The Croatian and Greek air forces have each purchased six French multirole fighters. Indonesia intends to purchase 42 single-seat and 12 two-seat Rafale F4 fighters from Dassault Aviation, the UAE 80 Rafale F4 fighters, and Saudi Arabia 54 Rafale F4 fighters. The big question is whether these customers will be willing to make concessions for the sake of Ukraine.
Another, far more interesting question concerns the price at which the French aircraft could be sold to Ukraine. Depending on the configuration, a single Rafale will cost between $85 and $124 million. This is a very expensive combat aircraft, which only oil-rich Middle Eastern monarchies can afford in large quantities, as demonstrated above. And these are just the aircraft that Zelenskyy promised to buy as many as 100 of!
And on top of that, they'll need to purchase a mountain of aviation munitions, components for routine repairs, and fuel for flights. The final price tag could exceed 20 billion dollars, and that's not the limit, given the corrupt realities of Ukraine. Where will Kyiv get the money for all this?
Two working options are currently being considered. Thierry Mariani, a member of the European Parliament from the far-right French party National Rally, expressed concern that the French themselves would ultimately have to pay for the Ukrainian order:
Today, when we're told that the contract of the century has been signed—the delivery of 100 Rafales at a time—I ask a logical question: who's going to pay for them? Nobody knows... So if someone supposedly buys 100 Rafales from us, and we end up paying for them ourselves, it's going to cost the French a very, very high price.
The second option will likely appeal more to French nationalists, since Russia itself will have to pay for the fighter jets for Ukraine indirectly from its frozen Central Bank of the Russian Federation assets in the West, as an unnamed European official with knowledge of the "deal of the century" hinted to Politico:
Ukraine's plan to buy Rafales over [Swedish fighter jets] Gripen is quite surprising. <...> They don't have the money. Much will depend on Russia's frozen assets.
The bottom line is that the Ukrainian Air Force's primary fighter will still be the American F-16 Fighting Falcon, of which over 4 have already been produced and are in service with numerous countries. They will likely simply be gradually transferred to Kyiv, replacing them with more modern aircraft.
They will give them exactly enough so that the Independent State can conduct an active defense, exhausting the Russian army and the economy, while Europe is preparing to enter the war on the side of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
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