Poland and US accused after fighter jet plan falls through
Ukraine’s president vents frustration with ‘ping pong’ jibe after apparent deal to send war planes to defend his stricken country fails amid diplomatic debacle
VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY has accused the US and Poland of “playing ping pong” with the lives of Ukrainians after the apparent collapse of a proposal to send MIG fighter jets to his air force.
The Ukrainian president criticised the White House, the Pentagon and Warsaw after the deal fell through amid a diplomatic debacle.
Last night, the Pentagon said it would oppose any Nato plan to deliver fighter planes. It is too “high risk”, said spokesman John Kirby.
On Tuesday, Poland had announced it was offering all its Mig-29s to the United States for use in Ukraine, with the expectation America would “backfill” Warsaw with F-16s. Hours later the US, which had not been briefed on the plan, rebuffed it saying it could draw Nato into direct conflict with Russia.
In response, Mr Zelensky said: “When will there be a decision? Listen, we have a war. We do not have time for all these signals. This is not ping pong, this is about human lives. We ask once again – solve it faster. Do not shift the responsibility. Send us planes.”
He added: “We have seen in the media that there are discussions between the American and Polish sides. But we sense that the Polish offer is not supported [by the US].”
The back and forth between the US and Poland shows how Nato allies want to send planes to Ukraine but none of them wants to be first to do so because of the risk of an escalatory response from the Kremlin.
Yesterday, a senior US defence official put the onus back on other members of the Nato alliance. He said: “If another nation wants to consider the provision of aircraft, that’s a sovereign decision.”
The decision, others stress, must be taken collectively by Nato.
The events which led to the MIG fiasco appear to have started with unguarded comments made 10 days ago by Josep Borrell, the EU’S foreign policy and security chief.
He told a stunned press conference that the EU was going to send fighter aircraft to Ukraine.
“We’re going to provide even fighter jets. We’re not talking about just ammunition. We are providing more important arms to go to a war,” he said.
A day later, he admitted the EU would not send the promised aircraft, but said they would be sent “bilaterally” by member states instead.
Since Ukrainian air force pilots are only trained to fly Soviet or Russian jets, he could only have been referring to Poland, Slovakia or Bulgaria, the only three EU members that still operate the aircraft.
All three countries issued hasty denials, saying they had no plans to donate fighters to Ukraine.
At the time, Andrzej Duda, the Polish president, said: “We are not sending any jets to Ukraine because that would open a military interference in the Ukrainian conflict.
“We are not joining that conflict. Nato is not a party to that conflict.”
But there have since been suggestions in Poland that secret plans were under way to transfer the aircraft, and Mr Borrell let the cat out of the bag. The Poles, so the theory goes, were prepared to give Ukraine the aircraft clandestinely, but did not want it known.
Those claims are impossible to verify but Polish officials have made little effort to hide their anger at Mr Borrell.
Paweł Jabłoński, the Polish deputy foreign minister, said: “Talks on this subject have been going on in public for a long time, not because of us, but because such public statements were made by politicians from other countries, and I do not mean only the US, but some EU politicians.
“Sometimes it happens that, for the effectiveness of certain activities, it would be better if certain matters were not publicly initiated.”
Jakub Kumoch, a senior official in the Polish president’s office, was more frank. He said: “The topic was triggered by Josep Borrell, who announced, out of nowhere, that EU countries were ready to hand over old fighters to Ukraine.
“I assess this statement very negatively.”
Whether Poland was already planning to hand over the aircraft or not, once it was in the open the matter became a political hot potato.
No one wanted to take responsibility for being the first to send jets.
As recently as last weekend Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, was still saying that Washington was “looking very, very actively” at doing so.
The idea was that the US would hand over F-16s to replace the Migs Poland was going to give Ukraine.
Publicly, Poland denied the suggestion, saying: “Our government has already stated that we do not envisage a handover.”
But the debate persisted, fuelled by Mr Zelensky’s repeated demands.
That led to Poland trying to “bounce” the US into action on Tuesday night, which may well have seemed like a good idea at the time.
It would have seen them transfer their Migs to US forces at the Ramstein air base in Germany, meaning it was no longer Poland’s responsibility if they went on to Ukraine.
Speaking at a press conference yesterday, Mr Blinken was asked if he supported the idea. He said the Polish plan “raises some serious concerns for the entire Nato alliance”.
Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said: “It doesn’t require a military expert to understand why having planes fly from a US air base into a contested part of a country where there is a war is not in our interest and is not in Nato’s interests.”
Germany and Canada joined the diplomatic fray, with chancellor Olaf Scholz and prime minister Justin Trudeau announcing their opposition to the Polish proposal at a press conference in Berlin.
Mr Scholz said: “We have to think very carefully about what we are doing, and this certainly does not include fighter jets.”
And Mr Trudeau warned of the risk of “expanding or escalating” the war.
Kamala Harris, the US vice president, was due to arrive in Poland last night to discuss the crisis. A senior US defence official said: “We continue to consult with our Polish counterparts. We are working very hard to get the Ukrainians the capabilities that they need.”