The Swedish Gripen and the Meteor Missile: Why Is Russia So Nervous?
If Sweden ultimately transfers JAS 39 Gripen fighter jets to Ukraine along with long-range Meteor missiles, it could become one of the most significant developments in the air war since the start of the full-scale invasion.
The Gripen was designed specifically to counter a stronger opponent. It is a lightweight 4++ generation multirole fighter capable of operating from short stretches of highway only about 800 meters long. It does not require massive airbases or hundreds of support personnel. Refueling, rearming, and preparing for another sortie takes only minutes, while operating costs are significantly lower than those of many Western counterparts.
But the aircraft itself is not the main advantage.
The Gripen's most powerful weapon is the Meteor air-to-air missile. Thanks to its ramjet engine, the missile maintains high speed throughout most of its flight path and can engage targets at ranges exceeding 150 kilometers, with some estimates reaching up to 200 kilometers.
For the Russian Air Force, this represents an entirely new level of threat.
Today, Russian aircraft carrying guided glide bombs often operate relatively safely, remaining outside the engagement range of most Ukrainian systems. These aircraft launch dozens of glide bombs every day against Ukrainian cities and military positions.
The arrival of Gripens armed with Meteor missiles would force Russian Su-34s, Su-35s, and other combat aircraft to remain much farther from the front line. The farther an aircraft is from its target, the more difficult it becomes to employ glide bombs effectively, reducing both their accuracy and impact.
This would mean more than simply reducing pressure on Ukrainian forces.
It would mean fewer bombs falling on Kharkiv.
Fewer strikes against Zaporizhzhia.
Less danger for Mykolaiv.
Fewer destroyed homes, schools, and hospitals.
Of course, no single aircraft can instantly change the course of a war. But the combination of modern fighters, long-range missiles, and well-trained pilots could significantly restrict Russia's air operations and deprive the Kremlin of one of its most effective tools of intimidation.
That is why Moscow follows every report about a possible transfer of Swedish Gripens and Meteor missiles to Ukraine so closely.
For Russian aviation, this is no longer just another fighter jet.
It is a warning that the era of near-impunity in aerial bombardment may be coming to an end.
Scandal brewing in “neutral” Ireland after revelations that one Russian-affiliated plant there has been supplying over 83% Irish exports of alumina to Russia where it’s smelted into aluminum, a critical component for war production.
Aughinish Alumina in County Limerick, Europe’s largest alumina refinery, owned by United Company Rusal (Russia’s largest aluminium producer), whose parent EN+ Group was founded by sanctioned oligarch Oleg Deripaska. An investigation by the Irish Times, OCCRP and other outlets, drawing on confidential documents, customs data and satellite imagery, established the supply chain.
The Irish government tried to deflect but when a reporter filmed the plant with signs in Russian, they could no longer deny it. Now internal documents were leaked showing that the company is threatening the Irish government with loss of jobs and all sorts of things if it tried to curb its exports to Russia.
The newest defense is that alumina isn’t under EU sanctions so technically no rules were broken. Except Ireland had no problem defying the EU and forging ahead with its own restrictions on imports from Israel with its Occupied Territories Bill. Because… reasons (or maybe Russian occupation of Ukraine is OK while Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands is not).
Australia stopped its alumina exports to Russia because the material is so necessary for the war (its main exporter was also 20%-owned by Deripaska). The neutral Irish government is operating under different standards, where morality is spelled in Russian.
I wonder what the Irish people, who overwhelmingly support Ukraine (in fact, they are among the strongest supporters in Europe when it comes to economic and financial aid), think about all of this.
I asked a local councillor if the russian refinery here in Ireland should be sanctioned.
He said yes, if it was supplying Israel.
But Russia? No.
This is Ireland’s sanctions hypocrisy in 90 seconds.
There are just three serious crosschain projects in crypto.
My favorite, @THORChain which is currently down.
The biggest with the biggest mcap @NEARProtocol
And @Chainflip
Chart looks like this.
Project is improving monthly, volume is going up, not much holders or anybody talking about it on CT.
Could do a 2-3x without anybody noticing.
$30m mcap for $FLIP https://t.co/CGVnSyLAgm
$Near is at $3.8b and before you say its a chain too blablabla, the only profitable aspect of Near is Near Intents which is the crosschain protocol like Chainflip and Thorchain
$Rune $140m mcap.
My FLIP holdings are bigger then ever because I expect eventually people will start to notice and then 200-500m mcap is not that strange. Which is 7-16x from here.
No unlocks. Fully vested. Fully diluted.
Top of funnel distribution. In every wallet. Trust. Metamask. Phantom. Binance.
Multi cycle viability. Lindy asset support.
Tron and bnb soon.
Zero emissions soon.
Take a sip anon. $flip
There is a well-documented pattern to the first Trump administration. The people who worked in it stayed quiet while employed, then the moment they were fired, sat down and wrote a book. Bolton. Esper. Mattis. Tillerson. The consistent theme: the man wanted to bomb things. Iran. North Korea. Venezuela. Mexico, on at least one occasion that we know of. The adults in the room spent considerable energy preventing a nuclear confrontation because the President had seen something on Fox News.
That was Term One. Term Two is different.
The adults are gone. What replaced them is a collection of individuals who in any previous era of American governance would not have been trusted with the photocopier code.
Picture the scene. The President announces he has an idea. He is enthusiastic. He uses hand gestures. The people around the table look up from their shoes and think, in unison: sure, sounds great.
Nobody pushes back. Nobody has a map. Nobody asks what happens to global oil supply when you bomb the Persian Gulf, or what Mexico does when American special forces cross the border, or whether Greenland’s population has any opinion on being purchased against their will.
Nobody knows, because the hiring criteria for this White House had nothing to do with knowing things.
In Term One, the grownups bought time. They slow-walked the paperwork. They prevented catastrophe through sheer bureaucratic friction.
In Term Two, there is no friction. There is only nodding. And under the table, at least three senior officials are quietly Googling “where is Iran” on their phones. One of them has spelled it “I-ron” and is now reading a five-star review of a steam iron on Amazon. He finds it very informative.
He is the Secretary of Defense.
Not sure who neds to hear this, but when russia invades a European country, levels its cities to the ground, r*pes its women & children, calls for the extermination of its people, and openly says it wants to do the same to the rest of Europe then yeah, they really are our enemy.
Instagram still hasn't (correctly) patched their AI goop account reset thingy. Accounts are still being stolen and Instagram hasn't said anything about it. Nerds continue to find ways to convince AI to reset accounts for them.
People on social media are freaking out because some of these profiles apparently are big sources of revenue for them.
Meanwhile, rumors are floating around that a few weeks ago Instagram laid off a large percentage of their Trust & Safety department and had it replaced with AI.
Very cool
A researcher found critical Windows zero-days.
Reported them to Microsoft.
Microsoft denied the bug bounty.
Deleted their account.
Banned them from GitHub.
Then threatened criminal charges.
The researcher dropped six zero-days in six weeks.
Three got used in real attacks within days.
Other researchers are now handing them free vulnerabilities as a gift.
Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit is considering legal action.
Against the person whose bugs they refused to pay for.
This is Microsoft’s bug bounty program.