The United States has rejected an offer made by Poland to transfer its fleet of MiG-29 fighter jets to an American base in Germany and from there to reinforce the Ukrainian Air Force. as requested by President Volodymyr Zelensky.
At the same time, Washington this week maintained patrols with four B-52 strategic bombers in Eastern Europe, sending a signal to Russia, which has been on high nuclear alert since the Sunday after the invasion of the neighboring country, February 27.
And the Pentagon has announced that it will send two Patriot anti-aircraft batteries to Polish territory to ensure that the Ukrainian conflict does not spill over to the borders of members of NATO, the US-led military alliance.
The three movements are intertwined. The Polish proposal took the Pentagon by surprise on Monday (8). “It’s just not clear to us whether there’s a substantive rationality to it,” spokesman John Kirby said bluntly.
Warsaw wanted, with the idea, for the US to be the guardians and executors of the plan to supply fighters to Zelensky. Before the war, Ukraine had 37 models of Soviet MiG-29 and 34 Su-27 fighter jets. Many were slaughtered, according to available reports.
In NATO, Poland has the largest fleet of MiG-29 light fighters, a legacy from the time when the country was communist and was part of the Warsaw Pact: 28 aircraft. One of the most famous Soviet aircraft, they have been adapted over time to be integrated into standard NATO weaponry and communication and data systems.
The Poles joined NATO in 1999, in the alliance’s first post-Cold War expansion, something Russia has not forgiven to this day. Vladimir Putin’s central “casus belli” in Ukraine is precisely its advance to the east, which has already encompassed 14 countries that were socialist, including 3 ex-Soviet republics in the Baltic.
Another neighboring country of Ukraine, Slovakia, which entered the great expansion of 2004, has 11 MiG-29s. Bulgaria (also in the 2004 class), further away, has 15, but they are in the phase of decommissioning. In theory, Ukrainian pilots can fly all these models.
Since the beginning of the war, the European Union and the US have been talking about sending fighter jets to Zelensky. As with the issue of the no-fly zone requested by the Ukrainian to the alliance, however, the idea seems to run into the fear of giving the impression of excessive involvement in the conflict with the Russians.
There is not a line drawn on the floor. No-fly zone would implicate Western air defense pilots and operators in Ukraine. Putin unsubtly warned of “unseen consequences” if anyone meddled in his operation. In other words, World War III, nuclear.
Apparently, NATO has realized that sending fighter jets might be acceptable given the supply so far of some 20,000 anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles to Kiev. “We are continuing consultations with Poland and other NATO allies on the issue and its difficult logistical challenges,” said Kirby.
The plane could be flown to Ukraine, but that could be read as a violation of airspace that the Russians seek to dominate, even with Zelensky pilots. The alternative would be to dismantle them and ship them by truck, which would expose them to bombing and eventual escalation if NATO personnel were involved.
At the same time, the US needs to show readiness, and that’s where the B-52s, flying mammoths that since the 1950s have been the mainstay of the US bomber force, come in. They can launch conventional or nuclear weapons such as cruise missiles. They are a message in themselves.
In early February, with the invasion being called imminent by the West, four of these planes were deployed to the British air base at Fairford. They are routine exercises, but the moment is not. From there, they have been conducting weekly patrol missions in Europe, the most recent over Romania on Monday (7).
Furthermore, the installation of the Patriots in Poland is intended to make the dividing line between Russian actions and NATO airspace very clear. So far, Moscow has been quite cautious, so much so that it operates very lightly in western Ukraine, where war refugees are concentrated in the key city of Lviv.
So much so that there is an emergency line of communication established between Russia and the US regarding operations in the region, to prevent any misunderstandings from turning into a declaration of war. But that could change, if a Russian fighter jet moves out of the way and is shot down in Poland or a missile from Moscow lands on the other side of the border.
