Among the outlets that shared the news is The Wall Streat Journal and CNN. In a comment to CNN, a White House spokesperson confirmed this possibility is available.
A Wall Streat Journal report says that the U.S. could provide Poland with F-16 jets if Warsaw decided to send MiG-20 and Su-25 fighters it owns to Ukraine.
Read more: Russian Invasion: Day Eleven (Live Updates)
The spokesperson said sending fighter jets into Ukraine is a “sovereign decision for any country to make”, but noted there are a host of logistics to work through, including how the aircraft would be transferred from Poland to Ukraine
Ukraine announced on February 28 that it fighter pilots had arrived in Poland to receive combat aircraft from its EU partners. The talk was about the Soviet-built aircraft which Ukrainian pilots have been trained to fly, meaning that such aircraft are the only ones that could be quickly brought into use by Ukrainian armed forces. The Ukrainian Parliament had even released the numbers of the aircraft Ukraine was expecting to receive: 28x MiG-29’s from Poland, 12x from Slovakia, and 16x from Bulgaria, and the latter had also committed to providing 14x S-25s. The three governments later denied their intentions, expressing reservations about providing the aircraft to Ukraine amid the Russian invasion.
There have been other options discussed on how to help Ukraine secure its airspace from incoming enemy threats.
Thus, Everett Pyatt, a former assistant secretary of the U.S. Navy for shipbuilding and logistics, is pushing for the transfer of three squadrons of A-10 aircraft to the Ukrainian Air Force, as reported by Defense News. The A-10 is designed to provide close air support to friendly ground troops by attacking armored vehicles, tanks, and other enemy ground forces. The airplanes are available since the U.S. Air Force wants to retire most of the 30-year-old fleet. Pilot retraining is minimal. All that is needed is painting Ukrainian insignia and delivering the aircraft. This could be done in days.
Read more: Russia Hiding Actual Numbers of Losses in Ukraine
