(LONDON) – Ukraine’s ability to counter Russia’s devastating glide bomb campaign hinges on the arrival of Swedish Gripen fighter jets equipped with Meteor missiles, according to a leading airpower analyst. Justin Bronk, Senior Research Fellow in Airpower and Technology at the Royal United Services Institute, said the combination represents Ukraine’s only realistic chance of shooting down the Russian aircraft launching the bombs.
“Engaging the glide bombs isn’t really an option. The only way to stop them is to engage the glide bomb launching aircraft. And Gripen and Meteor is the only way to do that for the Ukrainians,” Bronk said.
Russia is currently using between 400 and 850 glide bombs per week against Ukrainian positions. The bombs are launched from Sukhoi Su-34 fighter bombers flying at high altitude approximately 60 to 70 kilometres behind Russian lines. Attempting to intercept the bombs themselves is impractical due to their sheer numbers and the vulnerability of air defence systems placed near the front line.
Bronk explained that Ukraine’s current F-16 fighter jets are not suited to countering this threat. The longest range air-to-air weapon the F-16 can carry is the AIM-120 AMRAAM missile. However, the versions available to Ukraine would struggle to shoot down Russian fighters that “will be at high altitudes and speeds and will generally turn away when it’s fired on.”
The Meteor missile, by contrast, uses a ramjet engine that provides power throughout the entire engagement rather than just the initial rocket boost. “When it arrives against a long range target, it still has a lot of energy and it can potentially chase down and catch a manoeuvring target at much longer ranges than an AMRAAM could,” Bronk said.
The Meteor cannot be carried by the F-16 due to compatibility issues with the aircraft’s radar and data links. The Gripen is the only platform Ukraine has a reasonable chance of operating relatively soon that can employ the Meteor.
“The Meteor is the only weapon that Ukraine has potential to access quite soon which, coupled with the right tactics, clever enablement and clever mission planning, would still be difficult but has a chance of starting to shoot down some of those glide bomb launching aircraft,” Bronk stated.
The analyst noted that both sides have been unable to establish air superiority over the front lines for the entirety of the war. Ukraine began the conflict with one of Europe’s largest ground based air defence networks, including S-300 long range systems and substantial ammunition stockpiles. However, those Soviet era systems have been depleted.
Ukraine now relies primarily on Western supplied systems such as Patriot and NASAMS, but with “much less ammunition and far fewer systems.” This has left Ukrainian cities vulnerable to Russian long range strikes.
Russia has been conducting a sustained long range strike campaign using a combination of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and one way attack drones. The Iranian designed Shahed-136 drone, produced under licence as the Geran-2, costs approximately $70,000 (approximately £55,000 or €64,000) per unit compared to roughly $1 million (approximately £790,000 or €920,000) for a cruise missile.
Bronk said Ukraine has been waging its own increasingly successful long range strike campaign, targeting Russian oil and gas infrastructure and Wildberries warehouses, which he described as “essentially the Russian equivalent of Amazon.” The aim is to demonstrate to the Russian population that the war is not confined to Ukraine and to increase the political costs of continuing the conflict.
On the critical issue of Patriot missile supplies, Bronk said a global shortage has been “made vastly worse by enormous expenditure of Patriot PAC-3 missiles by both the US itself and by the Gulf States in Operation Epic Fury,” the US and Israeli attack on Iran that began in early February 2026.
“Russia is bigger and has more resilience than Ukraine and certainly more personnel to draw on. But the difference being that for Ukraine, this is a war of survival,” Bronk said. “For the Russians, this is the Russian leadership’s kind of pet project. It’s fundamentally a discretionary war. The Russians can end the war whenever they want.”
The analyst said the battlefield situation has reached a stalemate, with Ukrainian forces having “turned around the momentum” that had been against them through much of 2024 and 2025. “Russian casualties have skyrocketed,” he added.
A critical test for the coming months is whether the US administration prioritises resupply of Patriot interceptors to Ukraine from global production. European countries have largely exhausted their own stocks. Ukraine is developing a domestic anti-ballistic interceptor called Freya, but Bronk cautioned that “it’s a very, very hard technological thing to do” and will take considerable time.
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