Russia vowed to destroy all fighter jets donated to Ukraine by European nations after Poland and Slovakia, backed by new equipment and funding from the US and the European Union, became the first countries to send fighter jets to Kyiv.
Fighter jets have long been a demand for Volodymyr Zelensky’s Ukrainian government since the renewed Russian invasion in early 2022, but NATO leaders have so far shied away from what they saw as a major escalation of their involvement in the conflict. Thanks to cash and replacement fighter jets from the United States and the European Union, two European nations are sending fighter jets to Ukraine in the coming days.
Poland was the first to announce the shipment, whose air forces operate many ex-Soviet fighters. Warsaw announced on Thursday that it would send the first batch of Mikoyan MIG-29 “Fulcrum” fighters, a 1980s-era type originally built as a parallel to the American F-16. Although that delivery will amount to four fighters, Poland has dozens and is reportedly preparing to deliver others.
The shipment of the Polish fighters to Kyiv ends more than a year of bickering after the initial announcement of its intention to supply Ukraine with fighters in March 2022. The planes are expected to arrive in Ukraine in the coming days, according to Poland has reported.
Poland is backed in the donation, albeit somewhat indirectly, by the United States, which is supplying the Polish Air Force with modern F-35s. Until they arrive, which could take years, the UK has offered to provide air patrols in the skies of NATO members who donate warplanes to Ukraine.
In the case of Poland, the UK has explicitly offered to “pad in” its air defense capability when it delivers its own jets to Ukraine.
As has happened with other major escalations in support levels for Ukraine – the supply of main battle tanks, for example, where months of denials by NATO nations ended with a flood of donations after the UK opened the floodgates by being the first to supply them – Poland’s announcement about the planes has been closely watched. Slovakia announced on Friday that it would send all the MIG-29s in its air forces hours after Poland did.
Slovakia’s MIG-29s were retired last year, and not all of the 13 aircraft are functional, Reuters reports, but they will all be sent out anyway, with non-flying airframes to be cannibalized by the Ukrainians for spare parts.
Slovakia is also receiving considerable support from Western powers to make the donation possible. The European Union is making a $200 million contribution to the Slovak government in “compensation” for losing its planes. The United States has agreed to supply $700 million worth of new military equipment – probably American-made fighters like the F-35. – to replace them.
As Euronews reports, Ukraine has reacted somewhat ungratefully to the plane donations, with air force spokesman Yuriy Ignat declaring: “MiGs won’t solve the problems, we need F-16s. But the MiGs will help replace the F-16s. But the MiGs will help bolster our capabilities.”
Russia, for its part, declared the transfer of the planes to Ukraine illegal but said it was not concerned as the planes would be destroyed “naturally” anyway. A Moscow spokesman said that under contracts under which the Soviet-made MIG-29s were originally supplied to Poland and Slovakia, they need Russia’s permission to export them to third parties, the Kremlin’s TASS news agency reported on Friday.
Whether that obligation is real or not, Poland and Slovakia have clearly decided that pariah state Russia is not in a position to enforce contractual obligations anyway.
In any case, Moscow promised to destroy the Soviet planes once they were in the hands of the Ukrainians. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated that the donation demonstrated that the Western powers were directly involved in the war in Ukraine, that the supply of planes would have no effect on the war other than to lengthen it, and that: “Of course, these planes will be destroyed in the course of the special military operation’.
Cource: https://militaryview.com/
