Poland has long been open to the delivery of combat aircraft: the President has now announced that the first jets are to be handed over in a few days.
Poland has announced the delivery of fighter jets to Ukraine. This was announced by President Andrzej Duda in a press conference with his Czech counterpart Petr Pavel. Accordingly, four MiG-29 jets are to be handed over to Ukraine in the coming days. There are also plans to deliver more jets, which, however, still have to be serviced. The country’s leadership made a corresponding decision, and the government then passed a resolution.
Duda further said that the Polish Air Force currently has about a dozen MiG-29s, which were taken over from the stocks of the GDR in the early 1990s. “They continue to be in full service as working MiGs for our anti-aircraft defence.” The machines handed over to Ukraine are to be replaced by modern fighter jets, which Poland ordered from South Korea and the USA.
The delivery of the jets had already been indicated in the past few weeks – albeit not as quickly. Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Tuesday that jets could be delivered to Ukraine in the next four to six weeks. Poland had also previously signaled that it did not want to deliver the combat aircraft alone. It was initially unclear whether another state would join the delivery. Above all, a delivery through Slovakia was discussed beforehand.
Hofreiter: Germany should not stand in the way of deliveries
The Green politician Anton Hofreiter told t-online: “Germany should not stand in the way of the delivery of Polish and Czech fighter jets. However, German Eurofighters and Tornados are out of the question.”
Instead, Hofreiter demanded: “We should rather concentrate on the fact that the promised weapon systems are delivered quickly, the number is increased and additional ammunition is made available.” Only when Putin realizes that he will not win this war will he be ready for serious negotiations.
The chair of the Defense Committee of the Bundestag, Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, also commented on the Polish delivery: “Each nation ultimately delivers what it can contribute to support Ukraine,” said the FDP politician to t-online. Aid for the attacked country is “fundamentally to be welcomed”. In the past, Strack-Zimmermann had spoken out against the delivery of German fighter jets.
USA had previously refused delivery
Poland owns a total of around 30 MiG jets that were still manufactured in the Soviet Union. Poland received 22 of the jets from Germany in 2003. The Federal Republic still had these jets from old GDR stocks. If one of these aircraft were to be handed over, the federal government would have to agree.
A spokeswoman for the Federal Ministry of Defense told t-online on Thursday that Poland had not submitted an application for the jets to be exported. It can therefore be assumed that the aircraft that are now to be delivered to the Ukraine do not come from German stocks. In addition, the spokeswoman announced that the federal government has not yet received any application from Poland for the transfer of further jets.
Shortly after the start of the Russian war of aggression, Poland had proposed delivering MiG-29s to Ukraine. At the time, however, the US Department of Defense considered this to be too risky because Russia could have viewed it as an escalation. As a neighboring country to Ukraine, Poland is particularly affected by the consequences of the war.
