Someone has to win now. There is no other choice. 

The Concis

SHANKAR NARAYAN

NOV 18, 2025

Ukraine will not need security guarantees to shield its future anymore. That era is ending. Two moves make it obvious: 100 to 140 Gripen jets from Sweden. 100 Rafale jets from France. A 10-year airpower roadmap that drags Putin’s imperial fantasy into the darkest alley of his brain.

Europe and Ukraine will still sign their paperwork, draft their agreements, and pretend the old rituals matter if a ceasefire ever arrives. But the real security architecture has already moved into a different ecosystem.

Security guarantees for Ukraine before ordering 240 fighter jets
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Security guarantees for Ukraine after ordering 240 fighter jets.

The centre of gravity has shifted. Airpower is now the guarantee.

I don’t know what France intends to do on the financing side, but I am more than confident that the moment Sweden finalises the financial structure, they will start building Gripens at a steady pace. Every single jet that rolls out of that factory pushes Putin’s Hitler-type dream further into irrelevance. Over the weekend, Ukraine fired a significant number of its missiles and they delivered exactly as intended. The country already has a functioning ground-launched missile program, and once the solid-fuel plant they are building in Denmark comes online, they will have full redundancy across the board.

Berlin, meanwhile, has made up its mind. Germany will keep sending at least €9 billion to Ukraine every year. They haven’t said how long they plan to continue, but the taper will clearly come after the war—and frankly, it would be completely fair if it does. Germany has done above and beyond what anyone expected from them, and their commitment has reshaped the entire European strategic landscape.

This combination—homegrown missiles, expanding missile redundancy, and a steady supply of fighter jets from Sweden—completely rewires the long-term arithmetic for Putin. Things were already sliding in the wrong direction for his future, and then France detonated the next shock.

Yesterday, France and Ukraine agreed on a landmark deal that should have made Putin lose whatever sleep he still has left. A hundred Rafale jets—one of the most capable multirole aircraft on the planet—fold directly into Ukraine’s long-term force structure. This is the kind of move that forces even a dictator to whisper “now or never” into the darkness at three in the morning.

Zelensky didn’t bother hiding the scale of what this means. His explanation of the deal was blunt, expansive, and historically loaded. 

Here is how President Zelensky explained the deal with France:

One of the most productive visits this year – and certainly a new level in relations between Ukraine and France. We have a historic agreement on a new fleet of fighter jets for our country – 100 Rafale aircraft. And this is one of the best aircraft that can be used for our defense. Together with Swedish Gripens and American F-16s, the Ukrainian Air Force will be able to carry out all necessary defense missions and will guarantee our security. 

We will also receive highly effective French radars and new SAMP/T air defense systems that defend specifically against the types of missiles used by Russia. We agreed on the supply of air-to-air missiles and guided aerial bombs. France is also preparing a new military support package, which we will have by the end of this year. In addition, we have a strategic interest in cooperation between our defense sectors. This will be a significant strengthening of our defense industry together with France.

Ukraine is building historic ties with its partners in Europe that our state has never had before. At the bilateral level, we are doing what will also unite us at the level of all Europe: every bilateral agreement is a contribution to our Ukrainian future as an integral part of a united Europe. A Europe that is peaceful, free, and secure. I thank everyone who helps. I thank everyone who defends Ukraine’s interests as their own. Glory to Ukraine!

When Sweden announced the Gripen deal, I barely spent any time wondering how, when, or who would pay for it. The logic was simple: Sweden wants to anchor its fighter ecosystem inside Europe’s new security core, and the political will was already visible. But when France dropped its own deal, that was the first question that hit me. I went looking for numbers, structures, or even a hint of how they plan to finance a €10+ billion commitment.

I found nothing.

After three years of war, France’s total military assistance to Ukraine stands at €7.5 billion. There is almost no scenario where Macron decides to swallow another €10 billion in aircraft costs over a decade. Sure, spreading €1 billion per year would help Ukraine and fortify France’s production base, but nobody should assume Paris is ready to absorb that load directly. The room for unilateral generosity is limited, and the French industrial machine—while strong—is not a charity.

This leaves one realistic path: Europe has to step in, and it has to do it through a proper financing instrument. A coordinated EU loan for both Gripen and Rafale production is the cleanest and most logical option on the table. But even that pathway hits a wall, and that wall has a name.

Belgium.

If the EU can cut through the Belgian government’s obstruction on the use of frozen Russian assets, the entire financing problem disappears overnight. Twenty billion from those assets is more than enough to fund both the Gripen and Rafale orders without touching a single European budget. But I have never seen any government as committed to procedural bullshit as the current Belgian leadership. They have turned delay into a national sport. European leaders have already told Brussels they would be fully insulated in case of legal challenges, and yet Belgium continues to hide behind hypothetical court scenarios while the rest of the continent moves forward.

Right now, they will be burning midnight oil to manufacture the next round of excuses. This is where the major powers need to tighten the screws. Merz, Pistorius, and Starmer’s team should remind the Belgian government that shifting NATO and the European Parliament to Strasbourg is not an empty threat—it is now a live option. France and Germany should also start moving some of their assets out of Belgium and into France. That would send a message far louder than any communique: if Belgium wants to play games with strategic security, then Europe can move the centre of gravity elsewhere.

Yes, frozen Russian assets are a clean and defensible pathway to fund the jets. But Belgium will likely stand in the way unless the price of obstruction becomes unbearable.

My preference is simple: make it as ugly as necessary for the Belgian government until they move. Europe cannot let one mid-tier capital hold a continental security architecture hostage. If pressure fails, then the backup plan is straightforward — a dedicated EU loan or a soft, long-tenor loan to Ukraine. Give Kyiv the money now, lock in the orders, and let Ukraine figure out the repayment schedule over the next thirty years. The point is not the repayment. The point is to get the production lines moving.

And those lines matter. The combined Rafale and Gripen orders will be transformative for France’s defense industry, especially when stacked on top of India’s massive procurement. France is staring at an order book of 226 jets over the next decade. They have no choice but to ramp up from their current pace to a production rate of three to four aircraft per month. They publicly claim that is their target, but without secured funding they would take forever to reach it. With Ukraine’s orders locked in, the industrial logic flips — financing accelerates production, production accelerates deliveries, and deliveries permanently alter the balance of power over Eastern Europe.

And that cycle is good for everyone, including France.

Ukraine’s air force is no longer a wartime improvisation; it is becoming a permanent European asset. Once the Rafales and Gripens enter the production queue, the old language of guarantees, ceasefire paperwork, and diplomatic hedging will collapse under its own irrelevance. The only thing standing between Europe and a fully locked-in airpower architecture is the financial hiccup — a solvable, political bottleneck, not a structural barrier. 

Either Belgium moves or it gets moved; either the frozen Russian assets are unlocked or Europe builds a loan instrument and pushes the money through. One way or another, the funding will clear, the lines will start, and the jets will flow. Putin can drag the war out, but he cannot outbuild what Europe has already set in motion. The decade is already decided.

Europe needs unity. Brussels needs urgency.

Let’s keep pushing both.

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