The third quarter report from Sweden’s Saab show an order for 16 JAS Gripen E worth the equivalent of 2.22 billion euros (SEK 24.6bn).
By comparison, Saab’s entire sales for 2025 amounted to 7.14 billion euros (SEK 79bn).
This order comes from the Swedish state’s defence material administration agency (FMV).
The FMV will then send the Gripens to Ukraine after Saab delivers them, in 2029-2030.
Meanwhile the first JAS Gripen E produced outside of Sweden completed a successful flight in October, in Brazil.
This is the same model as ordered by Ukraine, and the most modern Swedish fighter jet currently in use.
It is the Brazilian company Embraer which is responsible for manufacturing the planes, as part of an agreement with Saab signed in 2013.
The CEO of Embraer, Bosco da Costa Junior, says this is a “historic milestone for the country’s aerospace and defense industry”.
It means Brazil is the only country in South America producing supersonic fighter jets.
But not only this: in August Saab also completed the first test flight of a further development of the Gripen series, designated F.
This is a development of the current model, with two seats.
Saab says this development of the plane allows a weapons officer to participate in specialised missions, as well as enabling faster pilot training.
The Gripen F is likewise designed as part of the cooperation between Sweden and Brazil and that country will be the first customer.
Brazil already operates 10 Gripen fighters, at the Anápolis Air Force Base in Goiás State.
The Gripens of This First Air Defence Group only themselves became ready at the end of 2025.
They operated outside of Brazil for the first time in the Antofagasta Region of Chile when between late June and early July they took part in Exercise Salitre 2026.
Other countries participating were the USA, Argentina, Colombia, Paraguay and the UK.
The quarterly report also included one more mysterious detail: a ten billion kronor contract to deliver two GlobalEye surveillance aircraft to an ‘undisclosed customer’.
Photo credit: Joao Paulo Moralez/Copyright Saab AB