The Pentagon on Tuesday evening was forced to shoot down an unexpected Polish proposal to transfer the latter’s jets into American custody before sending them on to Ukraine.
Poland had seemingly blindsided the United States and other allies by announcing earlier in the day that they 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.
Polish authorities and other allied leaders agree that the provision of the planes raises the risk of an unprecedented war between NATO and Russia. The decision to transfer the planes 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 Government also requests other NATO Allies — owners of MiG-29 jets — to act in the same vein,” the Polish Foreign Ministry said Tuesday while announcing that it would transfer ownership of its fighter jets to the U.S. with the understanding that planes would ultimately be flown in combat by Ukrainian pilots.
But Pentagon spokesman John Kirby responded Tuesday evening, saying, “We will continue to consult with Poland and our other allies about this issue and the difficult logistical challenges it presents, but we do not believe Poland’s proposal is a tenable one.”
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 unawares, as Warsaw had claimed in public that such a gift to Ukraine would be too risky.
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“I think that actually was a surprise move by the Poles,” Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland, who was testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when the Polish government made its announcement, told Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a New Hampshire Democrat.
Poland could exchange its 28 fighter-jets MIG-29
with U.S. in a barter transaction, for equivalent of 28 F-16 jets, to be then given by U.S. to Ukraine.That would avoid putting Poland to a risk of lowering its own security in case of a direct transfer@ABlinken @DmytroKuleba
— Jacek Saryusz-Wolski (@JSaryuszWolski) March 7, 2022
Polish President Andrzej Duda played down any willingness to send the fighter jets directly to Ukraine last week “because that would open a military interference in the Ukrainian conflict.” And Polish officials have little appetite for relinquishing the fighter jets unilaterally.
“Decisions on the supply of offensive weapons must be made unanimously at the level of the entire NATO,” Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said Tuesday. “We cannot take any steps on our own because we are not a party to this war.”
The Pentagon said Tuesday that “the decision about whether to transfer Polish-owned planes to Ukraine is ultimately one for the Polish government” while faulting the new proposal as a path to conflict between NATO and Russia.
“The prospect of fighter jets ‘at the disposal of the government of the United States of America’ departing from a U.S./NATO base in Germany to fly into airspace that is contested with Russia over Ukraine raises serious concerns for the entire NATO alliance,” Kirby said. “It is simply not clear to us that there is a substantive rationale for it.”
Poland functions already as a staging ground for the land-based delivery of many arms shipments to Ukraine, which shares an extensive border with Poland. More than a dozen U.S. and European countries have provided weaponry to Ukraine, but officials from various NATO member states are wary of trying to deliver armaments or even humanitarian aid by air — much less fly warplanes into the theater.
Yet the Polish announcement drew bipartisan applause from Republican and Democratic lawmakers who have amplified Zelensky’s pleas for an influx of warplanes.
“There will be hand-wringing and concern about what might happen and how Russia might respond, but I did receive a note from a friend who said … ‘this war will be over when Putin is more worried about what NATO might do than NATO being worried about what Putin might do,’” Sen. Mitt Romney, a Utah Republican, told Nuland. “All things associated with this conflict have a certain degree of risk, but, at the same time, there are people dying, and there is, I think, a worldwide clamoring … to provide support and help to the people of Ukraine and to help end this outrage.”
It also raises the chances, as another top defense official acknowledged, that Poland will face a retaliatory Russian military operation that could necessitate a response from NATO.
“Poland will understand that the choices it makes will not only directly help Ukraine, which is a good thing, but also may bring them into direct line of fire from countries such as Russia or Belarus,” British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said Tuesday. “So it’s not for me to second-guess their choice. But it is for me as a fellow NATO member to say I will stand by Poland.”
One day after Zelensky asked lawmakers to help him acquire additional fighter jets, Secretary of State Antony Blinken likewise gave “a green light” for Poland to give the planes directly to Ukraine.
“In fact, we’re talking with our Polish friends right now about what we might be able to do to backfill their needs if, in fact, they choose to provide these fighter jets to the Ukrainians,” Blinken told CBS.
The transfer would denude Poland’s air force of 28 MiG fighter jets at a time when NATO officials are working to enhance the military presence on the periphery of the war in Ukraine.
The Polish foreign ministry underscored its desire to acquire U.S.-made F-16s to replace the outgoing Russian-designed warplanes, but Nuland suggested that new Patriot anti-aircraft missiles might be a more “immediate” measure to patch the forthcoming gap in Polish air defenses.
“What’s most important in the short run with regard to Poland is that they benefit from full air security from the NATO alliance,” she said. “We’re also looking at putting some Patriot batteries into Poland. So I think that the main issue is to evaluate together what Poland’s immediate needs are in the context of being a neighbor of of this conflict.”
Shaheen, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee for Europe, described the Polish announcement as “a courageous and virtuous decision” to try to tilt the conflict in favor of Ukraine.
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“We applaud their leadership that rises to meet the gravity of the moment and assist our Ukraine partners in their moment of need,” she said in a joint statement with Sen. Rob Portman, an Ohio Republican. “We also hope other NATO allies will follow Poland’s lead and make their Soviet-era aircraft available to the Ukrainians. Doing so would give Ukraine the ability to continue contesting its skies and provide a tremendous morale boost to their military and the people of Ukraine as they continue to fight for their freedom and future.”
