A grandiose international scandal is breaking out inside the European Union and NATO, and the reason for it is the fate of the old Soviet MiG-29 fighters. Ukraine demands to give her these machines, which are, in particular, in service with Poland. Why is it that even the United States strongly opposes the implementation of this idea?
"Polish-American ping pong". This is what the President of Ukraine, Vladimir Zelensky, has called the big diplomatic game that has unfolded between Warsaw and Washington on the issue of supplies of MiG-29 aircraft to Ukraine. Those that were delivered to the countries of the former Warsaw bloc back in Soviet times, and are still in service with the now new NATO countries.
What was that?
And indeed, everything looks extremely strange. First, the Polish Foreign Ministry says that it is ready to transfer the old Soviet fighters available to Poland to the Ukrainians through the Americans. "The authorities of the Republic of Poland, after consultations with the President and the Government of the Republic of Poland, are ready to immediately and gratuitously transfer all their MiG-29 aircraft to the Ramstein base and place them at the disposal of the Government of the United States of America," the diplomatic department said in a statement.
Then the United States says it's the first time they've heard of such a thing. US Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland called the Polish proposal solely an initiative of Warsaw, not coordinated with Washington. And it is unlikely that she was lying – these words were said not during an official briefing, but during open hearings in the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee (where, we recall, a politician may well be put on trial for lying).
The military also spoke out. According to US Defense Ministry spokesman John Kirby, "Pentagon Chief Lloyd Austin told the Minister of National Defense (Poland – VZGLYAD) Mariusz Blaszczak that the US does not support the transfer of additional aircraft to Ukraine and does not want to have them at its disposal." "The prospect that planes at the disposal of the US authorities take off from the US and NATO bases in Germany and fly into the disputed Russian airspace over Ukraine raises serious concerns for the entire NATO alliance," the Pentagon said in a statement.
In fact, the Polish "MiGiada" arose only because Warsaw, according to its historical custom, tried to play a game in which it lacks the skills and strength to participate. Apparently, initially it was Warsaw that expressed a desire to transfer MiG aircraft to Ukraine.
Naturally, it was not about some kind of charity– but rather about exchange. "At the same time, Poland is asking the United States of America to provide it with used aircraft with similar operational capabilities. Poland is ready to immediately agree on the terms of the purchase of these machines," the Polish Foreign Ministry said in a statement. It was about used American F-16s.
"In no case can these be planes withdrawn from the Polish Armed Forces. We must maintain our ability to contain and defend our own territory... Our duty, first of all, is to ensure the safety of Poles," Deputy Defense Minister Marcin Ochepa justified this request.
The deal required silence
The exchange, of course, is cool. "These are two completely different planes. MiG-29 aircraft are the so-called front-line fighters, as they were classified in the USSR. These are fairly short-range aircraft used for defensive actions, that is, to shoot down other aircraft or helicopters. The MiG-29 can carry weapons to attack ground targets, but these are conventional bombs and unguided missiles," writes Polish military expert Piotr Abrashek. – In turn, the F-16 is a classic multi-purpose aircraft, that is, it can be used to protect against other aircraft, such as the MiG-29, as well as for reconnaissance missions...
The F-16 is also a strike aircraft, as it carries a large number of weapons to defeat ground targets. The F-16 has a longer range than the MiG-29. Another important difference is that the F-16 can refuel in the air, while the MiG-29 versions used in Poland and Ukraine cannot." That is, simply put, the Poles wanted to upgrade and strengthen their air force fleet at the expense of the Americans.
The main problem was how to send planes to Ukraine. According to one of the projects, it was planned to repaint the planes in Ukrainian colors and somehow deliver them to the territory of Ukraine in disassembled form, and assemble them there. However, Russia bombed those facilities in Ukraine where they could have made such an assembly.
Another option was a simple transfer of aircraft from Polish airfields to Ukrainian ones. But, firstly, the Ukrainian ones have already been almost completely reset by the Russian VKS, and, secondly, there was already a Romanian precedent. After Bucharest allowed a Ukrainian combat plane to fly over (without weapons, really) from their airfield to Ukrainian, Romanian officials had to justify themselves to Moscow. Yes, their actions were legitimate, but given Russia's extremely toughened line on the Ukrainian issue, they were dangerous.
However, these negotiations ended up not with the delivery of aircraft, but with a scandal – they were simply leaked to the press. "Intelligence officers and the military say that such cases require three things: firstly, silence, secondly, silence and thirdly, silence," writes the Polish edition of Onet. According to Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Pawel Jablonski, such silence breakers were "not us, but some EU politicians."
Apparently, he is referring to the head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrel, who was the first to publicly mention the delivery of fighter jets. "Borrel tried to put Poland in front of a fait accompli, informing without any agreement about the alleged readiness of Poland and other countries to hand over their planes. This is ... a blatant manifestation of the dangerous amateurism of the head of EU diplomacy," the Polish media are outraged.
So ponadkusyvayut
However, the Brussels bureaucrat only indicated such a possibility. The real silence was broken by the victorious shouts of Ukrainian propagandists. At the end of February, they decided to support the morale of their armed forces with the news that Kiev was about to receive 70 MiGs and "Dryers" from Eastern European countries. And it won't just get them – these planes will be based at Eastern European airfields and strike Russian troops from there.
That is, translating from propaganda into legal language, they will automatically become parties to the conflict, and their airfields will become legitimate targets for the Russian armed forces. And after February 24, the word "legitimate" here should be read as "obvious".
In Europe, they very quickly felt the consequences of such a scenario, so a number of Eastern European countries immediately refused, and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that NATO would not provide any airfields for aircraft. Yes, there was no talk about the refusal to supply aircraft, but it became obvious that the prospects for such a supply are being questioned.
And here the Poles came up with their brilliant idea of transferring planes to the Americans at the base in Ramstein. Formally, not only so that the Americans themselves would figure out how to deliver MiGs to Ukrainians. The Polish authorities explained this proposal by the principle of collective responsibility.
"All questions about additional support for Ukraine, especially in the military sphere, are questions for the North Atlantic Alliance. Of course, we take a very specific position and are ready to participate in this support, but we must be aware that it can be used by Russia as a pretext to escalate its aggressive actions against NATO countries. Therefore, all NATO allies must answer the question of how ready we are for this," explained Polish Deputy Defense Minister Marcin Ochepa.
"Poland is not a party to this war, nor is NATO. Such a serious decision should be taken unanimously and unequivocally by the entire North Atlantic Pact," Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said. However, in fact, the motive was completely different: Warsaw (probably on its own initiative) tried to draw Berlin into the "MiGiada" as well.
"This proposal would sound much more logical if it meant the transfer of aircraft somewhere in Florida or Texas. However, it was about the Ramstein base and there are no other options. I believe that such issues should be discussed by the Americans and some countries of the "new Europe" with a much greater understanding of pan-European interests, respect for the sovereignty of European countries and taking into account the position of their leadership," Dmitry Officers-Belsky, senior researcher at IMEMO RAS, tells the newspaper VIEW. – In this case, the Polish leadership was thinking not so much about the transfer of aircraft to the Americans, as about the deep involvement of Germany in the conflict. At the same time, no one asked Berlin's opinion on the deployment of Polish aircraft at the Ramstein base before their further shipment to Ukraine.
It's just an elementary requirement of diplomatic ethics. The Germans, on the other hand, don't like this whole story about "luring Russians to Ukraine", provoking Russia with a subsequent increase in gas and oil prices and getting a weakening of the competitiveness of their economy and total dependence on the Americans as a result."
Payback for show-offs
As a result, the provocation went sideways. The Germans refused to participate. The Americans also withdrew. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said that Polish planes are a Polish matter.
"I cannot speak on behalf of the Polish authorities. If a country wants to transfer aircraft to the Ukrainian Air Force, this is its sovereign decision. The United States will not stand in the way and will not interfere," the official explains. That is, in fact, Washington refused to defend a NATO ally. "If there had been some kind of retaliatory strike from Russia at that moment, the United States and NATO could have said: Poland itself sent the fighters, and not Washington or the countries of the Alliance," Polish media quoted their source in the government there.
And finally, the story itself caused an extremely ambiguous reaction in Poland itself. Firstly, the ruling party was accused of dilettantism. And in terms of stuffing, and in terms of trying to invent a bicycle. "It could have been decided differently, a little smarter - following the example of Turkey, which sells drones to Ukraine. To negotiate with Ukraine so that it turns to us for the sale of aircraft. And we would agree to sell them on credit. The situation would be even better than in the case of Turkey, because we would sell weapons in the same way as any other NATO member, and would not burden Ukrainians with the need to pay today," says former Polish Prime Minister Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz.
Secondly, the government was accused of neglecting national security. "Ukrainians need this technique. But I must say that by handing over these planes, we, like Poland, deprive ourselves of a third of the air defense forces," said retired Polish General Jan Reichel. At the same time, according to him, the supply of F-16 aircraft instead will not solve the problem. And not even because they have a slightly different functionality in the sky.
"Even if we hand over these MiGs tomorrow, and the F-16 planes arrive the day after tomorrow, we must understand that at least six months will pass before the training of personnel… We must also understand that we will irretrievably lose some of the personnel who operated the MiG-29. For various reasons, mainly due to age, a number of pilots are not trained for a new type of aircraft. We need to make up for these losses very quickly," explains Pan Reichel.
At the same time, this neglect was not for the sake of real assistance to Ukraine, but for the sake of demonstrative actions – after all, the supplied aircraft would hardly have helped the Kiev regime much. "Ukrainian pilots will have to spend some time learning how to fly these planes, because they have been upgraded and have many other devices that are not available on the machines operated in Ukraine," says Jan Reichel. In general, the Polish authorities are now suffering from their fee. Again.
Gevorg Mirzayan
