MOSCOW, May 30. /TASS/. NATO hopes the supply of Sweden’s Saab 340 AEW&C plane to Kiev will increase its capabilities to expose the location of Russian air defense systems, Alexander Stepanov, a military expert and program director of the Academy of Political Sciences, has told TASS.

Earlier, Swedish Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Energy, Business and Industry Ebba Busch said that the government would allocate $1.26 billion to Ukraine to improve air defenses.

"The key element of the support package is the delivery of a Swedish-made Saab 340 AEW&C airborne radar aircraft. To put it in a nutshell, the plane will significantly expand Kiev’s aerial reconnaissance capabilities and help identify aircraft and potential ground targets for strikes," said Stepanov, a senior research fellow at the Institute of Latin America of the Russian Academy of Sciences. "At the same time, NATO will increase its ability to identify priority targets in the Russian border areas for strikes with high accuracy weapons, including those with nuclear warheads. Given Saab’s range, the system’s use is theoretically possible outside the range of Russian air defenses and fighter aircraft, including over international waters, or from positions in neighboring NATO countries," Stepanov said.

The Saab 340 AEW&C is an airborne radar aircraft capable not only of escorting enemy fighter jets flying combat sorties, "but also of exposing the locations of Russian missile defense systems, detecting the takeoff of our aircraft, including strategic ones, and launches of cruise and ballistic missiles at a distance of up to 450 kilometers".

Stepanov added that the aid package would also include US medium-range AIM-120 AMRAAM all-weather air-to-air guided missiles (intended for yet-to-be provided F-16s) and air defense systems. Also, he said, Sweden will dispatch the remaining old armored vehicles, including about 600 tracked Pbv 302 APCs from the 1960s.

The expert believes that in this way "Stockholm has now decided to deepen its involvement in the escalation of tensions in Eastern Europe."

"The 15 military aid packages from the Swedes over the last couple of years have probably already been turned to scrap on the frontline. This is well-seen in the captured "most advanced and effective mechanized infantry combat vehicle in the world" CV-90, which ended its ignominious combat journey with a hole in its frontal armor plate after a shot with an ordinary man-portable anti-tank grenade launcher. Now crowds of visitors can see this product of Swedish military engineering at the Defense Ministry’s exhibition of trophies at the Poklonnaya Hill memorial in Moscow," Stepanov concluded.