Poland offers fighter jets for Ukraine
‘Rent-a-mig’ scheme would mean entire fleet put at disposal of the US but the Pentagon believes offer is not ‘tenable’
POLAND has offered all its MIG-29 fighter jets to the United States government as part of a proposal to get them to the Ukrainians.
Washington last night applied the brakes on the idea, however, after appearing to be blindsided by Warsaw’s public overture. Poland’s foreign ministry suggested in a statement that the used, Russian-made jets would be transported to a US air force base in Ramstein, Germany, describing the aircraft as “ready to deploy immediately and free of charge”.
The announcement raised the prospect of a potentially major development in the Nato allies’ military support for Kyiv in the wake of the Russian invasion.
In a surprise twist, Washington said it had not been consulted on Poland’s decision, although discussions had been taking place on Ukraine’s broader request for Polish aircraft. Victoria Nuland, the US state department undersecretary, told a Senate committee hearing last night: “To my knowledge, it wasn’t pre-consulted with us that they planned to give these planes to us.”
Later John Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, said the proposal to transfer the Mig-29s to a US air base with a view to sending them to Ukraine was not “tenable”. The US “will continue to consult with Poland and our other Nato allies about this issue and the difficult logistical challenges it presents”, he added, but stressed that the prospect of the jets departing from a Us-nato base to fly into airspace contested with Russia “raises serious concerns for the entire Nato alliance”.
It came after Kyiv said more than 50 children had been killed in the Russian bombardment of Ukrainian cities.
Speaking shortly after Poland made public its offer, Mateusz Morawiecki, the Polish prime minister, stressed the need for collective decision-making in Nato when it came to “offensive weapons”.
“Decisions to supply offensive weapons must be taken unanimously at the Nato level,” he said. “We cannot take any decisions on our own because we are not part of this war. It must be emphasised that neither Poland nor Nato are part of this war.”
On Monday, Russia’s ambassador to Britain warned that Nato could be dragged into the conflict because of weapons crossing from Poland.
The Polish offer came after Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, pleaded with MPS to help ensure the “skies are safe” over his country, as he made a historic address via videolink to a packed House of Commons.
Echoing one of Winston Churchill’s wartime speeches, he vowed to fight Russia “in the forests, in the fields, on the shores and on the streets”. Mr Zelensky also invoked William Shakespeare, as he said the question for Ukraine was whether “to be or not to be”.
US president Joe Biden has faced growing bipartisan pressure in recent days to provide military aircraft to Ukraine to help the nation protect its civilians. More than 50 Republicans and Democrats in Congress signed a letter to him yesterday calling for Polish jets to be given to Kyiv “swiftly, rapidly and efficiently”, and for the US to “backfill” Poland with its F-16s.
Their entreaty came after Mr Zelensky implored US politicians to supply aircraft in a Zoom call last Saturday. One of the 280 politicians on the call summed up Mr Zelensky’s message as: “Either close the skies or give us the planes, one way or the other, because the battle is often won in the air.”
It is understood Boris Johnson privately backed a mooted American-polish-ukrainian deal, referring to it as the “rent-a-mig” scheme.
A Polish diplomat, quoted by The Wall Street Journal, explained why the jets would be transferred “through the US and through US infrastructure”.
Signalling Warsaw’s determination to share responsibility for any transfer of the jets to the Ukrainians, the diplomat said: “We wanted the certainty that in six months or two years everyone will be comfortable that this was a Nato idea, a Western idea.”
Warsaw also urged other European allies with Mig-29s – a model of jet the
Ukrainian air force already owns and its pilots are trained to fly – to follow suit and donate them to Ukraine.
Poland owns 27 single- and twin-seat Mig-29s, while Bulgaria owns 14 and Slovakia owns 11, according to Jane’s World Air Forces, a military inventory database. Poland made clear that in return for its donation it had requested that Washington provide it with “used aircraft with corresponding operational capabilities”.
Receiving up to 27 jets from Poland would be a major boost to Ukraine’s air force, which at the beginning of the invasion boasted 98 combat aircraft, according to the Flight International 2022 World Air Forces database. These were listed as 43 Mig-29s and 55 Sukhoi jets. A repaint is all the jets require to be ready for service in the Ukrainian air force, a high-ranking Polish military officer was quoted as telling a Polish newspaper. However, retired US general Mark Hertling, former commander of US Army Europe, said the insertion of the Polish planes into Ukraine could be “dicey” and warned that preparing them would be a “long process” and it would “take more than a few days to get them into the fight”. He added: “There’s not only the transfer of the aircraft, there’s the maintenance, the arming, the small details, repainting from Polish to Ukrainian flashes.”
The news came after Russia’s ambassador to Britain declared Nato could be dragged into the conflict. The Russian Embassy quoted Andrey Kelin as saying: “There is a risk of drawing Nato into conflict in the event of arms supplies to Ukraine through the Polish border.”
While Western defence analysts have insisted that the transfer of aircraft would be a decision by sovereign nations, Mr Kelin’s remarks indicated that Russia could adopt a more hostile interpretation. Before Poland confirmed the aircraft transfer, Ben Wallace, the Defence Secretary, declared that Britain would back Warsaw if it decided to equip the Ukrainians with fighter jets.
Mr Wallace also warned that such a move could see Warsaw drawn into the “direct line of fire” from Russia or Belarus, but he signalled that the UK would offer its Nato ally defensive support.
“I would support the Poles and whatever choice they make,” Mr Wallace said yesterday, as he made it clear that Britain would not offer any of its own military aircraft to the Ukrainians.“we would protect Poland, we’ll help them with anything that they need,” he said.