Sweden Just Dealt Russia a DEVASTATING Blow

Sweden just made a very important move that has Russian war bloggers incredibly upset right now.Because what Sweden has done is they have effectively put Russia on notice that in the not -so -distant future, they will lose access to the effectiveness of one of the few weapon systems that has actually gotten them results in their war against Ukraine.That being the Russian glide bomb.And the timing of this probably could not be any more perfect.What Sweden has done is they have finally announced with Ukraine when Ukraine will start taking delivery of Swedish Gripen fighter jets, which is estimated to be as soon as early next year, early 2027, which might seem like a long time, but it's really not that long when it comes to this war.And this tranche of fighter jets will just be the beginning.

It will be about 16 donated fighter jets coming from Sweden, but Ukraine is also purchasing many more fighter jets from Sweden in the near future.And these fighter jets do something very damaging to Russia.They nullify the effectiveness of their glide bombs for reasons I'll explain in just a moment.But this is happening at the exact moment that Ukraine is starting to experiment with glide bombs of their own, and they've actually been rather successful, and they're looking to scale that up soon.And what both of these things mean together is that In 2027, next year, one of Russia's most effective tools on the battlefield, not only will it no longer be effective for the Russians because the Gripens will counter it, but Ukraine will be able to turn that tactic against the Russians because while the Russians may have that tactic in their tool belt, they don't actually have a good counter for it, which Ukraine will now have on their side.To understand why the Gripen fighter jet is going to be such a big deal in this war once it finally arrives in Ukraine's hands,

I should first explain the nature of the Russian glide bombs, which genuinely have gotten Russia some of their biggest victories of the war.

These glide bombs are attributed largely, for example, with stopping the Ukrainian counteroffensive back in 2023, when Ukraine had a chance to actually push back and take a lot of Russian territory from them.The Glidebombs were also credited in large part with the ultimate Russian capture of Avdivka, one of the last genuinely valuable military targets that Russia actually took.And the concept behind the Glidebombs is simple.Russia has their aircraft operating from behind the front lines, out of range of Ukrainian anti -air systems.

From that safe distance, they are able to drop bombs.Glidebombs that then guide themselves to their targets.

These glide bombs are not miraculous.They are not really good or effective at all at hitting moving targets, but they're quite effective at carrying a hard payload, a high payload, and hitting static targets that aren't moving, which means it gives Russia the ability to prevent Ukraine from building up fortifications in many cases.And like I said, it did ultimately prevent Ukraine from being effective in their counteroffensive against Russia, among other things.These glide bombs have been very effective throughout the war, but they have gotten less effective over time.As I'm recording this video, the last I saw was something like, it takes 17 Russian glide bombs to actually hit a target at this point, because Ukraine has gotten so good at jamming the Russian glide bombs already, that in order to actually hit a target, Russia just has to fire a whole bunch of them, but even so, they typically can ultimately hit their targets.And it's been a genuine question in a lot of people's minds.

How is Ukraine going to overcome these glide bombs?they want to make significant progress against Russia?The Gripens are going to solve that problem.

Because the Gripen fighter jet will have its Meteor missile, which actually has a long enough range to reach Russian aircraft while they're in range to fire these glide bombs, while staying out of range of Russian air defense systems.

This overcomes the problem that Ukraine has had with the F -16 fighter jet, which could theoretically, you know, shoot down the fighter jets, shoot down the archers that are firing glide bombs at Ukrainian positions.But if they did so, they would have to expose themselves to Russian air defense systems.And because Ukraine only has a limited number of F -16s, that's just not a job where they've been willing to risk aircraft very often.The Gripen fighter jet will fundamentally change that calculus.It will actually reverse that calculus.In a way, it will give Ukraine air superiority, or at least as much air superiority as anybody's actually going to have in this particular conflict.

And once the tides are turned and the Gripen is taking out Russia's ability to fire glide bombs on their end, at the same time that Ukraine is likely to start ramping up glide bombs on their side, we could see a genuine shift in the war, an additional shift on top of the other shifts that I've already been talking about for the last several months here on this channel.

So the Swedish Gripen, when it comes to this particular job that Ukraine desperately needs to accomplish, it does outclass the F -16s that Ukraine currently has access to.But that doesn't mean that the F -16 is a bad or worthless aircraft.The F -16 is still going to fly missions, and I'm genuinely excited to see what the F -16 can do with the Swedish Gripens being added to Ukraine's air force so the F -16s aren't constantly overwhelmed.when Ukraine just adds to its air force in general.we will probably see some synergies that make each of the aircraft even more effective in their particular domains.And the Swedish Gripen also has a lot of other strengths that I am genuinely excited to see how Ukraine uses these on the battlefield.

Most notably, this aircraft is famous for being able to land and take off from a regular highway, a regular road.and it can be easily serviced very quickly by a very mobile crew.That means that this aircraft can launch from any number of different places rather than select airbases where Russia would know where it is.

And it means that the aircraft can be stationed far closer to the front and they can actually be far more responsive than the F -16s have been for those frontline kind of jobs without risking, you know, Russia blowing up the facilities that are needed to service the aircraft.that will make a massive difference, and it is really, really exciting to think about what Ukraine can do with those.But right now, I am just talking about one job where Russia has been hurting Ukraine particularly bad.The Swedish Gripen, though, will be good for other jobs, jobs that right now we probably can't even imagine.

And what's notable is that right now, right already, Russia is running low on air defense systems as it is.Ukraine has been systematically taking Russian air defense systems offline.And those are not things that can be quickly recovered or rebuilt or replaced.

And so by the time the Gripen enters the combat scene by 2027, if the war is still ongoing, it's quite possible that there will be a lot of holes in Russian airspace that the Gripen can actually operate in.And again, because they can take off and land from highways and things of that sort.

they might be able to do a whole lot of missions with really high payloads that are

very devastating against Russian positions that Ukraine, up to this point, has only been able to hit with drones, which carry a lighter payload, or, you know, with things like cruise missiles that are just a little bit more expensive and harder to get through.

What's especially exciting about these Gripens, though, is that they don't just exist in a vacuum and they're not expected to carry the weight of the entire war by themselves.Instead, they're just going to do a couple of jobs particularly well, in the context of many new weapon systems that Ukraine has been bringing to the forefront, and likely will bring before the Gripen actually comes into service very soon.The problems Russia is facing are numerous right now.Ukraine just keeps innovating and implementing new technologies, new tactics, new threats that the Russian military has never had to face before.And they are having to answer all of these threats simultaneously at this moment, where they're already so ground down and so low on resources, and so low on intelligent manpower, because Ukraine in particular has been kind of targeting the heads, the generals who actually think about how to respond to these tactics.Russia has lost a lot of their military experience throughout their war against Ukraine, a lot of their most high -value soldiers are now gone, and now inexperienced people with less skills have to respond to this ever -changing battlefield scenario.

We've seen, for example, Ukraine releasing their Flamingo missiles.Ukraine is expected soon to release their ballistic missiles.Ukraine right now has been ramping up their mid -range and long -range drone strikes against Russia, giving them new threats and new theaters that they hadn't really had to face before until just right now at this moment.And again, that's going to get worse between now and the time that the Gripens come forward.

And this makes the Gripens fundamentally different, for example, than when the F -16sgot into Ukraine's hands.

When the F -16s got into Ukraine's hands, there was a lot of excitement, there was hope that this would be a game -changing weapon, and in a lot of ways it was, but by itself it wasn't enough.The Grippens are entering a battlefield where the F -16 already exists and will continue to exist, but there's also all this other technology.And Russia is really going to be in a situation where they have bit off more than they can chew.And what that means is that even if the Russians can respond to the Gripen in particular, and they can respond to Ukraine's new glide bombs in particular, the question is, what are they not responding to because they're so worried about responding to the Gripen?I also think that explains why Ukraine has made this announcement so early, before they actually receive delivery.You might think that this is a bad strategy because it gives Russia time to develop solutions to respond to the Gripen before it even shows up in combat.

But the reality is that if Russia does that, it's a mistake, because right now they have other weapon systems that Ukraine is using today that they need to put that effort into countering.So, Ukraine is really just in a position where they are overwhelming Russia right now, and that is a big deal.With that in mind, I do expect that the Gripen being given to Ukraine finally is not going to be the last in this tranche of Ukraine receiving new aid from their partners, but rather the first in a series of new aid, new partnerships that might be decisive enough to finally push the war over the line.The technology has always existed for Ukraine to defeat Russia on the battlefield.The problem is that Ukraine hasn't possessed that technology.It's sat in the hands of other countries, Sweden in this case, but also countries like the United States, who unfortunately doesn't seem likely to give Ukraine a chance.

and other countries as well, who have kind of sat on their hands a lot more than we would have expected to if they really wanted Ukraine to win the war.Now, there might be some other strategic considerations there.We don't know the conversations that are going on in back rooms.The timing of the Gripen being introduced right now, I've already explained why that's such good timing, because Russia's already been so ground down that it's hard for them to respond to it.This is the first of many things where people finally feel secure enough to put their technology in an actual active battlefield because they think the Russians are too overwhelmed, for example, to download that technology or to capture it or reverse engineer it.You get the picture.

Whatever the case, what we're seeing is something that I would argue is somewhat similar to what happened historically in the American Revolution, where the United States, or we weren't the United States at that time, just the American colonies fighting against the British Empire, We had a hard time getting allies to support us for years and years and years and years because people just thought we couldn't win that war or they weren't sure if we could win that war and they didn't want to get involved in that and get in a war with the British Empire themselves.That could be a big problem for them.But as the United States started getting more and more victories and as the British Empire showed signs of being overextended financially as the Russian state is today with their war against Ukraine.We then saw countries like France entering the war on the side of the United States, and the rest was history.We're seeing that in a lot of ways right now.We've seen it with a 90 billion euro loan package coming from Europe to Ukraine.

Finally, we see the grip in fighter jets.We see some more talks about joint development on, you know, missile systems that can replace the Patriot missile systems that Ukraine doesn't have enough of.The list goes on and on and on and on.So I'm really encouraged by what I see right now.I'm encouraged by the grip in me.a weapon in and of itself, of course, but I'm also encouraged by the broader trend that the Gripen speaks to.

It could be enough to tip the tide on its own, but it certainly doesn't have to be, because there is a really deep and rich well from which Ukraine can pull, and people are finally allowing them to dip their bucket into that well and actually pull it up and use it.I guess we'll see what happens.In the meantime, if you enjoy content like this, I want to invite you to join my insider Q &As that I put on for my patrons and my YouTube channel insiders.It's just something new I've started doing as a way to say thank you for those who choose to support this channel, which is actually my job, what I do for a living now.So if you want to participate in those, there's always great questions.I've gotten questions like if Putin is So, desperate, will he actually launch a nuke against Ukraine or Europe if he thinks he's going to lose the war?

And it's important to address topics like that.There's also questions about could Russia actually be forced to pay war reparations to Ukraine and just all sorts of questions.So, if you want to be part of those additional discussions on top of my regular videos, You can join and become a Channel Member Insider by clicking the Join button right below this video, right next to my face.With that in mind, thank you so much for watching this video.I'll see you on the next one.