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Poland will ship 4 Soviet-era MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine “within the subsequent few days,” President Andrzej Duda mentioned Thursday.
Poland is the primary nation to formally decide to sending fight planes to Ukraine, which Kyiv says it urgently must repel the Russian invasion, which has turn out to be a brutal warfare of attrition within the japanese Donbas area.
“We might be handing over 4 absolutely operational planes,” Duda mentioned at a joint press convention with Czech President Petr Pavel, in line with French newswire AFP.
Extra planes that are “at the moment underneath upkeep” might be “handed over step by step,” Duda added, and Poland will exchange the MiGs with American-made F-35s and South Korean FA-50 fighters.
After convincing its Western allies to produce Ukraine with dozens of tanks following a months-long diplomatic marathon, Kyiv has been intensively lobbying its companions in current weeks to ship trendy fighter jets.
As he toured European capitals final month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made repeated pleas to the U.Okay. and France to offer trendy jets to spice up his nation’s growing older air power, which is generally made up of Soviet-era planes.
But, Kyiv’s allies have been cautious of handing over the most recent era of fight planes, comparable to American F-16s, out of worry it will solely serve to additional escalate the battle.
To this point, the U.Okay. has began coaching Ukrainian pilots as a “first step” towards sending jets, whereas the U.S. has welcomed two pilots on an American airbase to evaluate their flying abilities, however is not going to allow them to function American F-16s.
In the meantime, nations comparable to France and the Netherlands have expressed openness to the concept, however steered clear of constructing any formal commitments.
The Polish authorities — one among Ukraine’s staunchest supporters since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022 — had already signaled its intention to ship jets in current days.
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