US and Polish officials have had a number of conversations since United States officials were caught off guard by Poland’s statement yesterday about providing fighter jets, an administration official said, adding that the relationship between the two countries remains strong despite the disagreement.
And a senior administration official says providing Ukraine with MiG fighter jets remains a priority for the administration, even after the US rejected Poland's proposal to transfer them first to the US, senior administration officials say.
While the White House was caught by surprise when Poland made its offer publicly, officials do not believe the episode precludes coming to some type of agreement that would allow the jets to get to Ukraine.
But at the same time, Tuesday's disagreement underscores the logistical difficulties that have so far prevented Ukraine from securing the jets. And officials indicated that the odds are stacked against finding a solution to provide the jets and that there are no immediate apparent solutions to facilitate the delivery.
There are also a handful of other countries with the jets — including Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria — and officials are not ruling out talks with those nations as they seek a way forward. One official said that Ukraine's initial request was directed at Poland, plus those three countries, but that Poland was the only country initially willing to entertain a possible jet transfer.
Officials describe the issue as two-fold: a logistics problem of getting the jets to Ukraine, and a political problem of avoiding escalation with Russia. US officials described the Polish plan as failing to adequately address both.
One administration official said the US was concerned Russia could interpret jets flying into Ukraine from a NATO base as an attack.
Another official said pressure to get the jets to Ukraine noticeably ramped up after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky pleaded with US lawmakers to facilitate a transfer during a Zoom call on Saturday morning.
Prior to the call, US officials had downplayed the prospects of helping with a transfer of the MiG planes, which Ukrainian pilots have been trained to fly. Officials said they were focused mainly on other areas of security assistance, including sending anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles. The logistical challenges of getting the aircraft to Ukraine appeared to some officials an unworkable challenge, and they questioned how effective the planes would be.
But Zelensky’s request on the call, which lawmakers described as impassioned, seemed to change the calculus. Immediately after the session ended, both Republicans and Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, came out in support.
That left the administration with little choice but to publicly get behind the idea, even if some officials were skeptical. By Sunday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US was working with Polish officials to transfer the planes to Ukraine and “backfill” with US jets.
An administration official said the bilateral relationship between the two countries remains strong and that the additional US security assistance has continued to flow into Ukraine via Poland, including in the last day.
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