Logistical challenges are holding up a Polish proposal to transfer jets into U.S. custody before sending them to Ukraine, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Wednesday.
The United States is seeking to fortify Ukraine’s defenses against the Russian onslaught without getting pulled into the war.
Poland caught the U.S. and other allies off guard by announcing Tuesday it would send its entire fleet of Russian-made MiG-29s to a major U.S. base in Germany in response to a chorus of appeals from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to upgrade Ukraine’s defense against a vicious Russian invasion. The Pentagon later shot down the idea.
PENTAGON SHOOTS DOWN POLISH PLAN TO PROVIDE MIGS TO UKRAINE
“Members of our Defense Department are in touch with Ukrainian counterparts, NATO counterparts, discussing what are clearly logistical challenges here,” Psaki said. “Fighter jets made by Americans departing a NATO base to fly into airspace contested with Russia raises serious concerns for the U.S. and NATO.”
Polish authorities and other allied leaders agree the provision of the planes raises the risk of an unprecedented war between NATO and Russia. The decision to transfer the aircraft to Ramstein, a U.S. Air Force base in Germany, represents an attempt to sidestep that risk by placing the responsibility for the gift on more powerful NATO members.
The Polish proposal would have meant a substantial increase in Ukrainian airpower, as the Polish-owned MiGs have been upgraded and modernized to function as a valuable part of the Central European country’s NATO-caliber military. Yet it caught U.S. officials off guard, as Warsaw had claimed in public that such a gift to Ukraine would be too risky.
“The logistical questions here, just to put a fine point on it, are things like how do you get planes into Ukraine in a way that is not escalatory?” Psaki said. “And what are the logistics and operational details of that? Those are the conversations that are happening between counterparts at the military level.”
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Psaki was asked later in the briefing if it would be possible to “put those planes on trains or automobiles” to get them into Ukraine.
“It is a serious logistical bottleneck,” she responded. “There are obviously concerns that the Department of Defense has spoken to about flying planes from U.S. air bases, right? That they spoke to yesterday. These planes, carting them down the street is not as easy as you may think it is.”
