The Vikings Awake—in Kyiv
by DAVID KIRICHENKO Sweden’s decision to send 16 Gripen fighter jets to Ukraine is more than another weapons transfer. It is the latest sign of a deeper shift that has emerged during Russia’s full-scale invasion: Ukraine’s growing alignment with the Nordic countries.
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by DAVID KIRICHENKO
Sweden’s decision to send 16 Gripen fighter jets to Ukraine is more than another weapons transfer. It is the latest sign of a deeper shift that has emerged during Russia’s full-scale invasion: Ukraine’s growing alignment with the Nordic countries.
Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s former foreign minister, recently posed the question directly. “Is Ukraine becoming a Nordic country?” he wrote following reports of the Gripen deal.
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The Gripen deal is only the latest sign that Ukraine’s future may be tied more closely to Stockholm, Copenhagen, Helsinki and Oslo than many would have imagined before Russia’s invasion.
Not geographically, Kuleba argued, but strategically. For decades, Ukrainians viewed their place in Europe largely through the lens of Central and Eastern Europe. Since 2022, however, Ukraine’s political and military center of gravity has increasingly shifted northward toward countries that have become some of Kyiv’s strongest and most consistent supporters.
Kuleba points to three reasons for this shift: Northern Europe’s leadership in supporting Ukraine, growing friction with some partners in Central Europe, and Ukraine’s search for reliable strategic anchors in Europe. The result has been what he describes as a renaissance in Ukraine’s relations with Northern Europe.
The military dimension of that relationship is increasingly visible. If delivered by early 2027, Sweden’s Gripens could provide Ukraine with a powerful new tool against Russian glide-bomb attacks, particularly if accompanied by Meteor long-range air-to-air missiles.
“In resisting Russia’s invasion, Ukrainians have rejected the Russian governance model defined by repression and lawlessness.
Instead, they are fighting for individual freedoms, democracy and the rule of law—the same ideals that define and anchor Nordic societies.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said Gripen fighters equipped with Meteor missiles, which have a range of more than 200 kilometers, could help push Russian aircraft far enough back to curb Moscow’s mass use of guided bombs against Ukrainian forces.
Such weapons could force Russian Su-34 bombers to operate farther from the front, complicating one of Moscow’s most effective tactics on the battlefield.
But the growing Nordic-Ukrainian partnership runs deeper than military assistance.