MiG-29

2022 - 3 - 9

mig-29

Post cover — Image courtesy of "The Week Magazine"

MiG-29 deal flew to the brink of a disastrous war (The Week Magazine)

There's a good reason U.S. officials on Monday quickly put the kibosh on Poland's plan to transfer its fighter jets to Ukrainians directly from a U.S. base ...

By now, everybody should understand why a fight between the U.S. and Russia is a bad idea: You don't want two nuclear powers trading blows, at all. The experts were more bullish on providing weapons systems to Ukrainians to operate on their own. "The no-fly zone option was clearly identified as the one most likely to lead to NATO-Russia conflict — with all respondents saying it would entail a significant risk of escalation." Even a proposed airlift of humanitarian supplies into the city of Lviv ranked on the riskier side of the spectrum. Just two proposals were ranked firmly on the "lower risk" side of the quadrant: Giving Ukrainians either unmanned drones or electronic warfare systems that can jam enemy communications and weapons while defending against such attacks. There's a real tension between helping Ukraine without helping it so much that the violence spills out across Europe. I've said it before: Prudence is hard.

NATO's Polish MiG-29 Fiasco (The Wall Street Journal)

The White House divides the alliance and signals weakness to Putin by refusing to let Warsaw send fighter jets to Ukraine.

- Opinion: Iran’s Master Class in Evading Sanctions - Opinion: Injecting Some Insulin Reality - Opinion: Iran’s Master Class in Evading Sanctions - Opinion: Injecting Some Insulin Reality You may cancel your subscription at anytime by calling Customer Service. On Tuesday Poland said it could transfer around two dozen MIG-29 jet fighters to a U.S. base in Germany, and then to Ukraine, whose pilots can fly the Soviet-era planes with minimal training.

Pentagon Opposes Sending MiG-29 Fighter Jets To Ukraine (Forbes)

The Pentagon came out against efforts to craft a deal to give Soviet-era fighter jets to Ukraine, casting the idea as a high-risk, low-reward proposition.

The United States weighed asking Poland—a former Soviet bloc country—to give its MiG-29s to Ukraine in exchange for U.S.-made F-16s, the Wall Street Journal reported Saturday. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday that NATO members had the “green light” to give jets to Ukraine, but the plan has faced some logistical hurdles. Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, also encouraged the Biden Administration to find a way to transfer planes to Ukraine. Where will they land?” The idea could also clash with NATO’s aim to back the Ukrainian government without directly joining a war against Russia. Polish President Andrzej Duda said last week “we are not sending any jets to Ukraine because that would open a military interference in the Ukrainian conflict,” and the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Tuesday didn’t offer to give its planes directly to Ukraine, instead effectively asking the United States to serve as an intermediary. Shortly after the war began, EU security chief Josep Borrell said that the bloc had crafted a deal for member states to provide Ukraine with used Soviet warplanes, but it quickly collapsed. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki on Monday warned of “a number of challenging practical questions, including how the planes would actually be transferred from Poland to Ukraine. … Are they going to fly? The Polish government said Tuesday it’s willing to transfer its more than two dozen MiG-29 fighter jets—a type that is also flown by Ukraine—to the U.S. at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, where they would presumably be made available to the Ukrainian air force.

Why is Poland giving MiG-29 fighter jets to the US – and is it a risky move? (unknown)

Will decision to give jets to US for expected transfer to Ukrainian forces make a significant difference to war with Russia?

Western countries have been supplying increasingly sophisticated arms to Ukraine so it can fight off the Russian advance. Poland had been expecting the US to supply it with more advanced F-16s to fill the gap. Poland said on Tuesday evening that it was willing to hand over its fleet of 28 MiG 29s to the US – which was in turn expected to pass them on to the Ukrainian air force.

US rejects Poland’s offer to send MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine (unknown)

Pentagon says Polish proposal to transfer Soviet-era planes to Kyiv via US base in Germany is not tenable.

“I will continue to convey the very strong bipartisan view of this committee that these planes need to get to Ukraine,” she told the panel. “So I think that actually was a surprise move by the Poles,” she said. The United States has rejected Poland’s offer to send its MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine via a US airbase in Germany, saying the proposal raised “serious concerns” for the entire NATO alliance.

Polish offer to donate MiG-29 jets to Ukraine took US officials by surprise (unknown)

An offer from Poland to donate MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine took US officials by surprise on Tuesday, raising fears the move could draw NATO allies into ...

To maintain the pretense that NATO and the EU are not direct participants in the Ukraine conflict, US and Polish officials have been considering a variety of options. But the handover of Poland's 28 Soviet-made MiG-29s would be unlikely to be a game-changer militarily. A senior US defence official has said Ukrainians are flying relatively few of their existing aircraft, for relatively little time, as it is. Poland publicly floated the plan to donate its MiGs the day before Vice President Kamala Harris was scheduled to depart for Warsaw for talks with Polish officials. White House officials were blindsided by the Polish announcement on the MiGs. The proposal did not come up during talks with Secretary of State Antony Blinken when he was recently in Poland, according to a US official familiar with the talks. The proposed gift of more warplanes would be a morale booster for Ukrainians under pounding Russian assault for nearly two weeks.

Poland says it’s ready to deploy all their MiG-29 fighter jets to US air base in Germany (unknown)

Poland said on Tuesday that it was ready to deploy — immediately and free of charge — all their MiG-29 fighter jets to the US Air Force's Ramstein Air Base ...

How can we help to make sure that they get something to backfill the planes that they’re handing over to the Ukrainians? We’re in very active discussions with them about that,” Secretary of State Tony Blinken said over on CBS on Sunday. More background: It remains unclear where the US will pull the F-16s from in order to possibly send them to Poland or other Eastern European countries in the near term. “At the same time, Poland requests the United States to provide us with used aircraft with corresponding operational capabilities.