Ukraine wants to reach out and swat Russian aircraft from hundreds of kilometers away, but there’s a problem. The long-range missiles that could make that happen are still locked behind politics, paperwork, and software headaches that make Windows updates look fun.
In this video, I break down why Ukraine urgently needs the MBDA Meteor; Europe’s most advanced beyond-visual-range missile, and why it doesn’t have it yet. President Zelenskyy recently admitted Ukraine still lacks a true long-range air-to-air missile, and everyone in the defense world knows exactly what he meant: the Meteor or the AIM-120D.
I’ll explain why these missiles are so game-changing, how the Meteor’s ramjet gives it a massive No-Escape Zone, and why you can’t just bolt one onto a donated F-16 and call it a day. Integration takes years, and Ukraine’s current aircraft like F-16s and Mirages don’t yet have the right software or radar systems to fully use them.
The good news? The Swedish Gripen C/D can already fire the Meteor, and those jets are presumably on the way. Once Ukraine fields them alongside its Saab 340 AEW radar aircraft, we’ll finally see the kind of long-range, networked air combat that can flip the airpower equation.
I’ll also cover the political side, the export restrictions, the integration bottlenecks, and the cautious European governments trying to prevent their best tech from being reverse-engineered. Spoiler: Ukraine’s not waiting around. It’s already building the kill chain piece by piece: radars, AEW aircraft, data links, and modern fighters. All leading to that day when Ukrainian Meteors fly east.
When that happens, Russian pilots will finally know what it feels like to be hunted from 200 kilometers away.
