Poland first NATO country to deliver fighter jets to Ukraine

Poland pIn the next few days, we plan to send four MiG-29 fighter planes to Ukraine.

Polish President Andrzej Da announced plans to send around 12 Russian-made warplanes. Four of them were sent. “within the next few days,” The Associated Press reported. Poland will be the first NATO member to fulfill the Ukrainian government’s growing demands for new warplanes. But not the U.S.-made F-16s.

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“They are in the last years of their functioning but they are in good working condition,” Duda spoke of the MiG-29s.

Ukraine has already operated the aircraft, which means that crews won’t need to undergo the intensive training required for F-16s.

After the Soviet Union’s collapse, Ukraine had several dozen MiG-29s. But they were almost all destroyed after more than one year of high-intensity fighting.

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Slovakia pledged in December to provide Ukraine with its MiG-29s, but it has not fulfilled this promise.

“We have not yet handed [Ukraine] the MiG-29s. But we are ready to do it. We are talking with our NATO partners about how to do it,” Rastislav Kacer, Slovakia’s Minister for European and Foreign Affairs, spoke to local news agency Interfax Ukraine December “And … we had a very meaningful conversation with [Ukraine’s] president. My defense minister explained to [the Ukrainian] president how we can do this. And I think that, in the coming weeks, a Ukrainian delegation will come to Slovakia, and we will work together with our American friends to make this [a] reality.”