The Pentagon called Poland’s proposal to transfer jets into U.S. custody before sending them to Ukraine “high-risk” just a day after they labeled the deal not “tenable.”
Poland announced on Tuesday it would send its entire fleet of Russian-made MiG-29s to a U.S. military base in Germany before transferring them to Ukraine in response to pleas from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The Pentagon was unaware of the proposal before it went public, according to a senior defense official.
“First, we believe the best way to support Ukrainian defense is by providing them the weapons and the systems that they need most to defeat Russian aggression,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said during Wednesday’s briefing. “In particular, anti-armor and air defense. We, along with other nations, continue to send them these weapons, and we know that they’re being used with great effect the slowed Russian advance in the north.”
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The Pentagon also believes adding these aircraft would not be “likely to significantly change the effectiveness of the Ukrainian Air Force relative to Russian capabilities,” Kirby added, saying the “gain from transferring” these planes to Ukrainian forces “is low.”
The intelligence community is concerned such a transfer could be “mistaken as escalatory and could result in significant Russian reaction that might increase the prospects of a military escalation with NATO,” he added.
The Pentagon has taken numerous steps to avoid doing things that could be interpreted as escalatory, including the postponement of a missile test and the creation of a deconfliction line between the United States and Russian military officials.
Poland currently functions as a staging ground for the land-based delivery of many arms shipments to Ukraine, which shares a border with Poland. More than a dozen U.S. and European countries have provided weapons to Ukraine, but officials from various NATO member states are wary of trying to deliver armaments or even humanitarian aid by air — much less fly warplanes into the theater.
The White House also referenced the fear of Russia viewing the deal as an escalation during Wednesday’s briefing.
“The logistical questions here, just to put a fine point on it, are things like, ‘How do you get planes into Ukraine in a way that is not escalatory?'” said White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki. “‘And what are the logistics and operational details of that?’ Those are the conversations that are happening between counterparts at the military level.”
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Kirby, in a Tuesday statement, said the decision “to transfer Polish-owned planes to Ukraine is ultimately one for the Polish government,” faulting the new proposal as a path to conflict between NATO and Russia.
“The prospect of fighter jets ‘at the disposal of the government of the United States of America’ departing from a U.S./NATO base in Germany to fly into airspace that is contested with Russia over Ukraine raises serious concerns for the entire NATO alliance,” he added. “It is simply not clear to us that there is a substantive rationale for it.”
Original Location: Pentagon balks at ‘high-risk’ plane deal involving Poland
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