Poland pledged to send four MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine in the coming days.
Polish President Andrzej Duda announced plans on Thursday to send around a dozen of the Russian-made warplanes, with four of those being sent “within the next few days,” the Associated Press reported. The delivery will make Poland the first NATO country to go through with the Ukrainian government's increasingly urgent requests for new warplanes, though not the desired U.S.-produced F-16s.
REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK: WAS BIDEN’S TRIP TO UKRAINE AND POLAND EFFECTIVE?
“They are in the last years of their functioning but they are in good working condition,” Duda said of the MiG-29s.
The benefit of the aircraft is that Ukraine already operates them, so crews will not need the extensive training necessary for the F-16s desired by Ukraine.
Ukraine inherited several dozen MiG-29s following the collapse of the Soviet Union, but nearly all have likely been destroyed after more than a year of high-intensity fighting.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
In December, Slovakia also pledged to give Ukraine its MiG-29s but hasn't yet followed through on the 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,” Slovakia’s Foreign and European Affairs Minister Rastislav Kacer told local news agency Interfax Ukraine in 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.”