Newsman: Poland is the first country to formally commit to sending combat planes to Ukraine, which Kyiv says it urgently needs to repel the Russian invasion.
Poland will deliver four Soviet-era MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine “in the next few days,” President Andrzej Duda said Thursday.
“We will be handing over four fully operational planes,” Duda said at a joint press conference with Czech President Petr Pavel, according to French newswire AFP.
Additional planes which are “currently under maintenance” will be “handed over gradually,” Duda added, and Poland will replace the MiGs with American-made F-35s and South Korean FA-50 fighters.
Kyiv has been intensively lobbying its partners in recent weeks to send modern fighter jets following a months-long diplomatic marathon assuring that its Western allies will supply Ukraine with dozens of tanks.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy toured European capitals last month and made repeated pleas to the U.K. and France to provide modern jets to boost his country’s aging air force, which is mostly made up of Soviet-era planes.
The U.K. has started training Ukrainian pilots as a “first step” toward sending jets, while the U.S. has welcomed two pilots on an American airbase to assess their flying skills, but will not let them operate American F-16s. The United States has denied of handing over the latest generation of combat planes American F-16s.
Meanwhile, countries such as France and the Netherlands have expressed openness to the idea, but steered clear of making any formal commitments.
