Sweden will provide Ukraine with more modern weapons as military assistance.

European Pravda writes about this, with reference to an interview with Pål Jonson, Minister of Defense of Sweden.

The minister said that Sweden will be more actively supporting Kyiv in the face of a Russian full-scale invasion.

“My first bilateral meeting was with the Minister of Defense of Ukraine, Oleksii Reznikov,” he added.

The Swedish government has not yet specified which modern weapons Sweden will send. However, previously defense spokesman Mikael Oscarsson identified two weapons systems as the two most relevant: the RBS 70 anti-aircraft system and the Archer artillery system.

According to Jonson, these statements illustrate three priorities put forward by the new Swedish government last week, which are related to Russian aggression in Ukraine.

Three general political declarations by Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson include the war in Ukraine, Sweden’s rapid defense investment, and Sweden’s bid to join NATO. Kristersson mentioned NATO eleven times in his government statement and promised to complete the process of joining the Alliance with Finland.

As previously reported, Alexei Reznikov, Minister of Defense of Ukraine, discussed strengthening the defense capability of Ukraine with the new head of the Ministry of Defense of Sweden Pål Jonson.

At the end of the summer, it became known that Sweden had officially agreed to consider providing Ukraine with Archer self-propelled artillery systems.

Also Ann Linde, the then Minister of Foreign Affairs of Sweden, said that Sweden would consider the transfer to Ukraine of RBS 70 portable anti-aircraft missile systems. The Armed Forces of Ukraine received RBS-17 missile systems from Sweden.

Archer ACS

The artillery part of the Archer self-propelled guns is represented by a 155mm FH 77B gun with a 52 caliber barrel length. The maximum range is 30 km with a conventional projectile (HE), 40km with a rocket-assisted projectile (HE ER) and 60km with an Excalibur guided projectile. The maximum rate of fire of the Archer self-propelled guns due to the autoloader is 8-9 shots per minute, and the fire mission deployment time is 30 seconds.

RBS 70 MANPADS

The RBS 70 is a Swedish-made man-portable short-range anti-aircraft missile system, which is guided by laser radiation through which a corridor is created along which the missile flies. At launch, the Rb-70 missile is ejected from the container at a speed of 50m/s. Then the marching engine is turned on, which operates for 6 seconds, accelerating the missile to supersonic speed (M = 1.6). The missiles have an effective range of up to 8km and up to 5km in altitude. The operator’s task is to keep the target in sight of the stabilized sight.