By Pierre Tran
Paris – France and Sweden have offered the Rafale and Gripen to Ukraine, raising questions of practicality and financing, but an eventual delivery of the fighter jets could not be ruled out, the Estonian ambassador to France, Viljar Lubi, said Dec. 16.
“These are big deals, difficult to deliver,” he told the Association des Journalistes de la Défense, a press club, when asked about the allies’ offer of fighters to hard pressed Kyiv.
“It’s all about detail, so there are many risks,” he said.
France signed in November a “declaration of intent” to supply up to 100 Rafale to Ukraine, while Sweden offered in October up to 150 Gripen, with Reuters reporting Stockholm was offering to help finance a fighter deal through military aid.
“How do you finance it, how do you work with it? It’s difficult, ” said the Estonian diplomat.
The complexity in foreign arms deals could be seen when France was hit by the AUKUS deal struck by Australia, the U.K. and U.S., he said.
Canberra sank in 2021 a French deal for 12 Shortfin Barracuda conventional submarines for the Australian navy. The then Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, switched to a rival offer of nuclear-powered attack boats from London and Washington.
Much could happen in the coming years on the offers to Ukraine, the senior diplomat said.
Lubi said he was the Estonian ambassador to India some 10 years ago, and he saw how it took not one but three successive French ambassadors – each serving four years – to work on a fighter offer before Paris won New Delhi’s order for the Rafale.
“Nothing ever goes according to plan,” he said, adding,“but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.”
On the complexity of arms deals, Dassault Aviation pulled out of India’s lengthy competition in the 1990s for a jet trainer, with the then executive chairman telling journalists it was not worth staying in after years of fruitless pursuit. That left the field open to BAE Systems, with the British company winning a 1 bln stg deal with its Hawk jet in 2003.
Dassault went on to win in 2016 an Indian contract for 36 Rafale, in a deal worth €7.8 billion, in the separate fighter competition. New Delhi has since ordered a naval version of the Rafale, and is looking to buy more fighters for the air force.
Lubi served four years as ambassador to the U.K. before taking up the posting here four months ago. He went in 2001 for European studies at Sussex University, a landscaped campus outside Brighton on the south coast of Britain, and he later went on to serve as economic counsellor in the Estonian embassy in Washington in 2009.
Estonia Grows Arms Sector
Estonia now had 200 firms in the defense sector, compared to 20 five years ago, the ambassador said. The companies were growing fast and were adaptable, he added.
Co-production of weapons in Estonia was being discussed in “very many sectors,” he said, adding that he could not disclose the scope of the talks, other than to say “we talk to many.”
“Cooperation” was very important, he said. Estonia needed to increase its capability and diversify its suppliers.
Estonia has ordered weapons from South Korea and Turkey, and speed of delivery was the highest issue, he said.
“Speed is important,” he said.
There was need to change an approach in which companies sought to sell equipment which suited them, he said, “not what you need.”
The combat in Ukraine pointed up the importance of interoperability and complementarity of weapons, he said. Around half of the defense funds were committed to equipment centrally, and half by commanders at the front line, who knew what was needed. That “user approach” was important, he said.
The issue of offset in arms orders was also to be explored, he said. Estonia has ordered two French-built Thales radars, he said and needed more. Tallinn has also ordered Caesar truck-mounted artillery.
There was the risk of inflation with a rising defence budget, he said. If industrial capability did not increase, prices would rise.
The senior diplomat studied economics at Tartu University, Estonia.
“There has been contact and collaboration between Estonian and Ukrainian defense firms,” said a December 2024 research note from Mars, a research organization.
There was now an industrial cooperation agreement which allowed Estonia to partner directly with Ukraine in arms, the report said. Previously, Estonia largely worked with Ukraine through European partner nations.
There were at least 10 Estonian defense firms now working in Ukraine on sensor, observation, field hospitals, and unmanned technologies, said the EKTL Estonian Defense Cluster, the Mars report said. The Estonian cluster met in April 2024 their Ukrainian counterparts to discuss drone production.
Milrem Robotics, an Estonian firm, has struck an agreement with Ukraine’s state-owned arms company Ukrainian Defense Industry JSC (UDI) to develop next-generation robotic defense systems, the report said. UDI was previously known as UkrOboronProm.
The Mars report is titled, Integrated Arsenals? Mapping defense industrial relations between Europe and Ukraine.
Tallinn has launched a €100 mln fund to boost the emerging defense technology sector, Reuters reported Feb. 21. The Estonian defense industry seeks to reach sales of €2 billion by 2030, up from the present €500 million.
The aim was to strengthen “disruptive offensive defence technologies,” said Sille Pettai, chief executive and fund manager at SmartCap, which manages the funds, the news agency reported.
E.U. Funds Ukraine’s Fight
That offer of Rafale fighters to Ukraine was reported as a political signal of support from French President Emmanuel Macron to his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskiy. It was not a commercial arms deal.
The fighters, part of an arms package of air defense weapons, would be financed by European Union funds and a planned tapping of frozen Russian financial assets held in Belgium.
Meanwhile, Ukraine won Dec. 19 a financial lifeline, with the E.U. agreeing to raise a two-year €90 billion interest-free loan to help Kyiv’s distressed finances. Ukraine was expected to run out of money in the second quarter 2026, so E.U. funding will help.
The E.U. members, however, shied away from seizing Russia’s €185 billion of assets held in the Brussels-based Euroclear financial institution, amid stiff resistance from Belgium.
The Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia opted out of contributing funds to the E.U. loan, which would be repayable if Ukraine won Russian reparations – seen as unlikely. That much needed E.U. support came amid fears the U.S. Trump administration was withdrawing support for Ukraine. Kyiv risked running out of funds, amid Moscow saying it was ready to seize more territory, and showed little willingness to negotiate a ceasefire.
Warfare was changing, the diplomat said, with undersea attacks on communications cables and gas pipelines last year, now there were drones. Maybe the threat would switch back to underwater assault in the future.
Decisions needed to be made in minutes, not days, he said, with Russian risk rising.
Estonia is pulling out of the Ottawa Convention, he said, which was a political sign to Moscow, not an intention to deploy land mines.
The Baltic nations – Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania – as well as Finland and Poland, have said they are leaving the international Ottawa treaty, which bans the use of anti-personnel mines.
There was a perceived pressing political and military need for the Western allies to tap the Russian financial resources stored in Brussels.
“So, the now-overdue use of frozen Russian assets to support Ukraine is not only vital in itself, but also for its hugely symbolic importance,” Nick Witney, senior policy fellow of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), said in a Dec. 12 note titled Death of the West.
“And, reflecting on 2025, European leaders should ask themselves whether the Trumpian diagnosis of terminal weakness is really surprising and whether they want that as history’s obituary when the pressure ratchets up in 2026.”