Fighter jets donation deal off! Poland, Bulgaria and Slovakia rejected request to give Ukraine their Russian-made planes
In a stunning reversal of what would be the most dramatic military aid to Ukraine from European Union, Ukrainian pilots that had arrived in Poland to take control of the donated fighter planes will leave empty handed as the 3 European countries that still fly Russian made planes similar to Ukraine had all rejected to give up their fighters.
“No commitments have been made for Bulgarian fighters. We currently have few flying planes and they cannot be delivered to another country. The other fake news I heard today is that we will be sending troops to Ukraine. There is absolutely nothing true in these two allegations.”
Bulgarian Premier Kiril Petkov told journalists at the Council of Ministers building, Monday 28 Feb 2022. He pointed out that Bulgaria had a deficit of fighter jets and would not send aircarft anywhere.
“Slovakia will not provide fighter jets to Ukraine.”
A spokesperson for the Slovakian Foreign Ministry told Newsweek on Tuesday morning 1 March 2022
“We have provided medical and military materiel—to be exact, 120mm munitions, diesel and aviation fuel, air defense systems, anti-tank missiles.”
“We are not sending any jets to Ukraine because that would open a military interference in the Ukrainian conflict. We are not joining that conflict. NATO is not a party to that conflict.”
Polish President Andrej Duda said after a press conference with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg
This represents a massive disappointment for Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, as his country’s air force is decimated in the intense air war that was fought all across Ukraine’s airspace as Russia conducted their “Special Operation”.
In DPA’s opinion, the decisions are likely military and defense concerns: that if the war gets bigger and becomes a regional war, these 3 countries may end up without an airforce to operate and defense themselves. Another concern would be the cost to replace these fighters with American or European made fighter jets – as most of these countries may not have budgeted any amount to acquire any advanced fighter jets, especially not in such a short time frame.
Especially, given how “no money” was discussed in the transfer of fighter jets from these 3 countries to Ukraine – the “donation” would be too expensive for these 3 countries to stomach.
EU originally announced that they would provide Ukraine with 70 Russian-made fighters (28 Mig-29 from Poland, 12 Mig-29 from Slovakia, 16 Mig-29 and 14 Su-25 from Bulgaria. If the deal/donation had gone through, it would represent a transfer of over 1.4 billion dollars worth of fighter jets (or would be more if we are to calculate the replacement cost for these fighters for the 3 countries)