The war for control of Ukraine will be aired, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told U.S. lawmakers on Saturday, urging them to give him planes to keep Russia at bay. The US is asking Poland and other Eastern European countries to donate to Russian manufacturing fighter jets in Ukraine and is working on a plan to fill the surrendering planes with USF-16.
One of the advantages of Russian aircraft is that Ukrainian pilots are already trained to fly them.
The other reason is that these planes can be deployed much faster. A U.S. official said the administration has told Poland that it should make Russian-made MiGs available in its arsenal because those planes would not require US permission to be transferred. Conversely, any effort to send newly manufactured aircraft to Ukraine could be hampered by several years of paperwork with defense contractors. In addition, the transfer of US-made F-16 fighter jets from NATO allies would require notification to Congress. As Ukrainian pilots are not trained on American aircraft, fighter jets will not be of immediate assistance to them, even if they could get them sooner.
Poland has 21 single-seat MiG-29s and 6 two-seat MiG-29s, according to Janes World Air Forces.
AP Photo / Misha Japaridze
Although Secretary of State Anthony Blinken says the US would approve the transfer of the planes to Ukraine and is already talking to Poland to fill its aircraft inventory, Poland has not yet decided to move forward with the transfers. In a tweet Over the weekend, the Polish prime minister’s office said a story that Poland would give MiG-29 to Ukraine in exchange for US-made F-16s was “false news”.
And it is still unclear whether Poland would deliver its entire inventory of these aircraft, or even whether they are all in working order.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Monday that while the U.S. is working with Poland and other NATO allies on the issue, “this is Poland’s sovereign decision.”
He noted the logistical challenges of physically transferring aircraft from Poland to Ukraine. “Are they going to fly? Where will they come from? Where will they land? These are very important questions here,” Psaki said during the White House daily press conference.
Psaki also said that there is complicated logistics for filling planes for European allies sending planes to Ukraine, “because the acquisition of new planes and the transfer of serious weapons systems often take years to complete. United States”.
Mark Cancian, a retired naval colonel and senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, discussed the source of Poland’s hesitation with CBS News.
“This is not a logistical issue. It is a political issue. It is a political issue in the sense that if you have a Polish plane and you put a Ukrainian pilot in it, and that pilot flies the plane to Ukraine to fight the Russians. the Russians can plausibly argue that Poland has now become a co-observer, as it is launching planes from its ground in Ukraine, “Cancian said. “So the Poles are very, very nervous about that and they want to be very careful that this doesn’t make them vulnerable to Russian counter-attacks.”
In short, Cancian believes that Poland will accept an agreement “for two reasons. One is that there is a great desire to help the Ukrainians. And the second is, if Poland can get rid of the old Soviet planes and get new F-16s north “Americans, that’s a good deal. They want to do it. Between those two, I think they’ll find out.”
Cancian noted that one criticism of this plan is that these planes are vulnerable. “They may not end up making as much difference as we expect. If we send them to Ukraine and the Russians take them out the next day with long-range missiles, what have we achieved?” But he noted that “at this point, there is also an element of symbolism. There is a real capacity, but there is also an element of symbolism.”
After Zelensky spoke with Congress, Senators Rob Portman and Jeanne Shaheen sent one letter President Biden urged him to send US-made aircraft to European allies supplying Soviet-era aircraft to Ukraine. They identified Poland, Bulgaria and Slovakia as countries in talks with the US on the transfer of part of their inventory to the Ukrainian Air Force.
The Biden administration has called for $ 10 billion in additional support for Ukraine to be included in a comprehensive government funding package expected to be approved by Congress this week.
In a letter sent to lawmakers by CBS News on Monday, Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States, Oksana Markarova, outlined Ukraine’s requests for legislation, which included taking appropriate steps to provide Ukraine with aircraft. and defense systems.
A U.S. official said Monday that airspace over Ukraine is still in dispute, and the Pentagon estimates that Ukrainians still have most of their fixed-wing aircraft available.
The Ukrainians have stopped the Russians in their advances in key population centers, but as the days go by, the Russians have hit targets without regard to civilian infrastructure.
Margaret Brennan, Josh Gross and Natalie Brand contributed to this report.
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