Poland wants to give warplanes to Ukraine via US, but US does not want it: “unacceptable”

Ukrainian pilots can handle Russian-made MIG-29 fighter jets. Given the availability of US F-16 aircraft, Poland made all its aircraft available and wanted to fly to Rammstein, a U.S. military base in Germany. The Poles thought that warplanes could be transferred from Germany to Ukraine.

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby called the construction “impossible.” He says warplanes available to the US government and warplanes departing from US bases to fly in Ukrainian airspace “will cause serious concern to the NATO alliance as a whole.”

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On Sunday, Warsaw reiterated that it would not supply warplanes to neighboring Ukraine. A White House spokesman said a day earlier that if Poland gave Ukraine its MiG-29 fighter jets, it could get US F16 fighter jets. The MiG-29 is of Russian descent and can be flown by Ukrainian fighter pilots.

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, who attended crisis meetings in the Moldovan capital Chisinau on Sunday, suggested the option was possible. However, on Twitter, the Polish government wrote that “Poland will not send fighter jets to Ukraine and will not allow (Ukraine) to use its airports.”