Poland does its best Pontius Pilate imitation and offers to hand over its MiG-29s to the USA:
Poland announced on Tuesday it was ready to hand all its MiG-29 fighter jets to the US, apparently as part of an arrangement to deliver the warplanes to Ukraine’s armed forces where they are desperately needed to fight off invading Russian forces.
The idea has been floating around for more than a week after Ukraine pleaded for more aircraft but the plan has been dogged by questions about how to deliver the planes to Ukrainian territory without dragging NATO into the conflict.
Tuesday’s announcement will be seen as a Polish effort to force the US and NATO to go further in backing the Ukrainian fight.
‘The authorities of the Republic of Poland, after consultations between the president and the government, are ready to deploy – immediately and free of charge – all their MIG-29 jets to the Ramstein Air Base and place them at the disposal of the government of the United States of America,’ said the Polish foreign ministry.
Poland is believed to have 28 MiG-29s – a Soviet-era fighter flown by the Ukrainian air force – although not all are airworthy.
If the situation weren’t so serious, it would be amusing to watch all the word games and verbal legerdemain in which countries like Germany, Poland, and Switzerland are foolishly engaging. They keep acting as if their transparent anti-Russian actions won’t be held against them as long as there is some sort of legal cloak that permits them to claim that they’re not doing what they are observably doing.
Russia is quite clearly a “spirit of the law” player, so all of these legalistic maneuverings are totally pointless. Especially since an attack by US aircraft from a US airbase in Germany on Russian forces would be a declaration of war by NATO for which all NATO members could be held accountable.
This is really just a polite way of saying no. If Poland had been serious about getting the MiGs to the Ukrainians, they would have offered them to the UK, because the current Johnson regime is dumb enough to try to play stupid games like this.
UPDATE: Neither the USA nor NATO appear to be eager to give Russia an obvious justification for attacking NATO forces in Eastern Europe. This tends to suggest that neither Finland nor Sweden will be permitted to join NATO if they are foolish enough to apply.
The Pentagon has poured cold water on Poland’s offer to hand all its MiG-29 fighter jets to the US, apparently as part of an arrangement to deliver the warplanes to Ukraine’s armed forces where they are desperately needed to fight off invading Russian forces.
The idea has been floating around for more than a week after Ukraine pleaded for more aircraft but the plan has been dogged by questions about how to deliver the planes to Ukrainian territory without dragging NATO into the conflict.
But Pentagon Press Secretary John F. Kirby said on Tuesday night the deal was unworkable and would cause serious concerns for the ‘entire NATO alliance’.
Russia has made clear that it will consider any use by Ukraine of neighboring country’s territory as a ‘casus belli,’ or justification for attack. That means Ukrainian pilots taking off from Poland or Germany in the MiGs would cross a Russian red line. Asking Polish pilots to fly them in would also be viewed by Russia as NATO entering the conflict.