First NATO Member to Provide Ukraine with Fighter Jets Will Be Poland
First NATO Member to Provide Ukraine with Fighter Jets Will Be Poland: Poland's Warsaw (AP) — Poland announced on Thursday that it intended to provide Ukraine with roughly 12 MiG-29 fighter jets, making it the first NATO member to satisfy Kyiv's urgent pleas for airplanes to protect itself against the Russian incursion.
Four of the Soviet-built fighters will be delivered by Warsaw "over the next few days," according to President Andrzej Duda. The remaining aircraft required maintenance but will be sent later. He used a Polish phrase that can signify between 11 and 19 when describing the overall amount.
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Despite being in their latter years of operation, they are still in fine operating order, according to Duda.
Notwithstanding Slovakia's declaration that it would deliver its own abandoned MiGs to Ukraine, he did not specify whether other nations would follow suit. Moreover, Poland was the first member of NATO to deliver Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine.
Piotr Mueller, a spokesperson for the Polish government, claimed on Wednesday that other nations had also offered MiGs to Kiev but did not name them. Poland and Slovakia both said they were prepared to turn over their aircraft, but only as part of a larger international coalition that was also willing to do so.
By Duda's pronouncement, the government of the neighboring NATO member Germany appeared unprepared.
"So far, everyone has agreed that it's not the time to send fighter jets," German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told reporters. "Poland has not yet confirmed that this has occurred," I said.
The White House praised Poland for continuing to "fight above their weight" in aiding Kiev and referred to Poland's move as a sovereign decision. Nevertheless, the White House emphasized that President Joseph Biden, who has rejected requests to send U.S. F-16s to Ukraine, would not be affected by the move.
White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby stated, "At this moment, there has been no change in our judgment with regard to fighter aircraft. "We have the right to make that choice. Other countries can talk to their own" decisions because that is where we are.
Poland alerted the United States of its plan to provide MiGs before Duda made the announcement, according to the White House.
Ukraine had several dozen MiG-29s it acquired from the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991 before Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, but it's unclear how many are still in use after more than a year of battle.
Fighter jets for Ukraine, a non-member of NATO, have been a topic of discussion since last year, but NATO countries have expressed worry about extending the alliance's involvement in the conflict. Even though Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pleaded louder for Western allies to provide their jets, the hesitancy persisted.
During a joint press conference in Warsaw with the visiting Czech President Petr Pavel, Duda made the announcement.
According to Duda, Poland's air force will replace the aircraft it lends to Ukraine with FA-50 fighters and F-35s built in South Korea and the United States.
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