What difference will Polish, Slovakian fighter jets make to Ukraine?
Commentary
What difference will Polish, Slovakian fighter jets make to Ukraine?
By James Black
Mar 23, 10:46 AM
The news that Poland and Slovakia are to deliver MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine — some of which have reportedly arrived — signals their departure from the long-standing stance of the international community, which had hitherto resisted Kyiv’s calls for more combat aircraft to help fight off Russia’s invasion. While this donation will be welcomed in Ukraine, it could raise political and practical issues the West must address to maximize the benefits — and mitigate the risks — of this latest move to bolster Ukraine’s defenses.
Poland is expected to deliver four MiG-29s and Slovakia has pledged 13 from its own inventory. This number is expected to include some that are no longer operational and thus would be cannibalized for spare parts, rather than donated in flying order.
Alone, these fighters will be useful to Ukraine’s Air Force, which currently has more pilots than working aircraft after a year of heavy losses. They will help to keep up air operations in the face of a persistent threat from Russian ground-based air defenses and combat aircraft, as well as to support any ground offensives the Ukrainians mount in the spring and summer.
But in current numbers, the envisaged donations will likely neither make a decisive battlefield impact nor fundamentally alter the strategic calculus or the imbalance between the sizes of the Russian and Ukrainian air forces. Instead, the biggest immediate impact of this decision is political.
The willingness to break ranks from the previous consensus against donating fighters underscores the influential role that Poland, Slovakia and other smaller NATO front-line states have played in driving international support for Ukraine. Though the largest donor of military aid is, by a huge margin, the United States, followed by the U.K., many of the Eastern European states have been giving a much larger portion of aid as a percentage of their respective gross domestic product. This reflects how seriously they take the Russian threat as well as their solidarity with Ukrainians, with whom Eastern European countries have especially close social, cultural and economic ties.
Conveniently, these countries have stockpiles of old Soviet-designed equipment — types already used by the Ukrainians and thus can be quickly put into service.
https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/commentary/2023/03/23/what-difference-will-polish-slovakian-fighter-jets-make-to-ukraine/
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No surrender.
I am humbled by their courage.
