The supply of fighter planes to the Ukrainians to help them defend their skies against the Russians, mentioned by several Western officials, promises to be complex to implement.
The possibility of a no-fly zone over Ukraine having been rejected by the West, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is now asking them for planes. ” If you don’t at least give us planes so that we can protect ourselves, we can only draw one conclusion: you too want us to be killed slowly! “, he launched to them on Sunday.
According to the “Military Balance” of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), the Ukrainian military fleet consists exclusively of old Soviet fighter aircraft of the MIG-29 and Sukhoi-27 types, as well as Sukhoi-25 fighter-bombers . These devices are the only ones that Ukrainian pilots could handle without prior training.
The head of European diplomacy, Josep Borell, mentioned the delivery of Soviet-made fighter planes by member countries that have them. Within NATO, only former members of the Warsaw Pact still officially own Russian planes. The MiG-29 in particular meets Kiev’s needs. It’s a fighter, it would allow Ukrainian pilots to compete with the Russians for mastery of the skies.
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Slovakia has 14, Bulgaria 11 and Poland 28. But giving up these planes would be a high-risk operation. Deployment could be interpreted as active participation in the conflict. Getting them by road would be a logistical challenge. And could they land? The runways and hangars have been bombed, restoring this infrastructure would be complex and it is not certain either that the Ukrainians still have the capacity to maintain these devices.
For the time being, the countries with these planes remain on hold. With a war on their doorstep, they do not wish to weaken their own fighter fleet. Even if Washington has hinted in Warsaw in particular that they could replace them with F-16s.