During the meeting in Warsaw between the presidents of Ukraine and Poland, Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Andrzej Duda, there was announced that the number of MiG-29 fighter jets that are already being transferred to Ukraine.
According to Andrzej Duda, Ukraine has already received four MiG-29s, four are in the process of being transferred, and six more will be given in the coming months. That is, Ukraine is about to be supplied with 14 MiG-29’s overall.
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This number almost corresponds to the number of operational non-modernized MiG-29s in the Polish Air Force: 13 units assigned to the 22nd air base in Malbork. It should be noted that an air base in the Polish Air Force is an aviation unit, not just a military base. Together with the Su-22 of the 21st air base and the MiG-29 of the 23rd air base, they make up the 1st tactical air wing of the two available in Poland.
It is important that Poland received these MiG-29’s in the 1990s and 2000s from the Czech Republic and Germany. And they did not undergo any significant modernization, except for the rescaling of the indicators in the radio navigation equipment from feet to meters, updating the communication and the "friend-foe" system.
At the same time, the maximum number of non-modernized MiG-29’s is 17 fighter jets, some of which are not in flight condition. 12 of them were received from Germany and they already had too little resources. And in the early 2010s they were planned to be decommissioned. Therefore, some of them might have been transferred to Ukraine as spare parts.
As for the modernized MiG-29 (15 units overall), the President of Poland noted that it is necessary to obtain the consent of the USA due to the fact that they have American equipment. But even in the case of obtaining consent, Warsaw will not be ready to hand them over immediately, since these planes are on combat duty. And Poland will be able to give these MiG-29’s only after the arrival of a minimum number of the FA-50 and F-35 aircraft.
Defense Express reminds that Poland should receive the first F-35 in 2024. And this is provided that the contract for 32 jets worth 4.6 billion dollars was signed in early 2020.
The situation is slightly better with the FA-50, the first batch of 12 FA-50 Block 10 worth $700 million was signed in September 2022, the first two are expected to arrive in August 2023. But to these terms it is necessary to add time to achieve operational readiness.
In any case, even modernized MiG-29s cannot fully use Western weapons, in particular the AIM-120 air-to-air missiles. That is why it is extremely important for Ukraine to get Western fighter jets of the 4+ generation.
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