Poland will deliver a first batch of four MiG-29 fighter-bombers to Ukraine, Polish President Andrzej Duda announced on Thursday, marking the first such delivery by a NATO member.
“In the next few days, we will first transfer (…) four fully operational aircraft to Ukraine,” Andrzej Duda told reporters.
kyiv has repeatedly called on its Western allies to send it modern fighter-bombers, hoping to get American F-16s. The Polish decision “does not change anything”, however, to the US refusal to do the same, said John Kirby, spokesman for the White House shortly after.
“This does not change our analysis”
“It doesn’t change our analysis. (…) It’s not on the table,” he told reporters, recalling that President Joe Biden had publicly opposed the delivery of fighter jets to Ukraine.
Reacting to the Warsaw announcement, Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ignat said: “MiGs will not solve the problems, we need F-16s. But MiGs will help strengthen our capabilities.”
Russia did not immediately react to the Polish announcement, but the Kremlin repeated several times that Western arms deliveries to Kiev would only prolong the conflict and the “suffering” of the civilian population, without changing Moscow’s “military objectives” in Ukraine.
Source: BFM TV
