Poland has delivered the first MiG-29 fighter jets it promised Ukraine, an adviser to the Polish presidency announced on Monday.
“Some MiGs have already been sent, they are actually useful for Ukraine to defend the security of all of us”, dMarcin Przydacz told the private radio RMF24, quoted by the French agency AFP.
Without specifying how many aircraft have been delivered to Ukraine, Przydacz said “the first part of the handover process has been completed,” according to the Spanish agency EFE.
Poland’s former deputy foreign minister said Ukraine will ask its allies for more support during Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s official visit to Warsaw on Wednesday.
Przydacz welcomed the formation of a coalition in Western Europe to coordinate Ukraine and supply military equipment, insisting on the need to speed up deliveries.
“This equipment needs to be delivered in much larger quantities and much faster so that Ukraine can repel Russia,” he added. quoted by the Spanish agency Europa Press.
Poland and Slovakia promised to send at least 30 Soviet-made fighters, which the Ukrainian military considers ineffective because they are old.
“We need modern multi-purpose aircraft,” Yuri Ignat, spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force, said recently.
Kiev has repeatedly asked its Western allies to send modern fighter-bombers, hoping to get hold of the American F-16s.
Polish President Andrzej Duda announced in mid-March that four MiG-29s would be delivered shortly.
Duda then said that Poland had inherited about 15 MiGs from the former German Democratic Republic.
Poland was the first member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, for its acronym in English) to announce the sending of aircraft to Kiev, despite the United States’ refusal to authorize the delivery of F-16s.
Slovakia has also announced the delivery of the first four MiG-29s, of the 13 it promised to Kiev.
Ukraine recently refused to confirm to the AFP the number of MiG-29s in service, but according to the Flight Global World Air Forces 2023 report, published late last year, it had 43 aircraft in operation.
Ukraine’s Western allies have provided military equipment to the Ukrainian Armed Forces to counter the Russian invasion launched on February 24, 2022.
In addition to armaments, Kiev’s allies have passed successive sanctions packages against Russian interests to try to reduce Moscow’s ability to fund Ukraine’s war effort.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine sparked a war that plunged Europe into what is considered the most serious security crisis since World War II (1939-1945).
The balance of civilian and military casualties is unknown, but several sources have admitted it will be high.
The UN confirmed the deaths of more than 8,400 civilians since the start of the war to March 26, as well as 14,000 civilian wounded.
Source: DN
