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U.S. explores sending Ukraine more advanced weapons after scuttling Polish jet deal
The Ukraine military has 56 fighter jets left and is using them 5-10 hours per day. Without spare parts, they'll begin falling out of the sky due to maintanance issues.
After the Afghanistan evacuation fiasco-disaster, I hoped the Pentagon was done with shameful operations. Now comes its denial of the Polish MiGs.
Perhaps NATO should use Slovakia as a Ukraine resupply hub. It has both the standard EU railroad track gauge, and the slightly wider Ukraine railroad track gauge.
3.11.12
The Biden administration, under pressure to expand the arsenal of weapons that Ukraine has in its conflict with Russia, is working with European allies to expedite more sophisticated air-defense systems and other armaments into the war zone, U.S. officials said Friday. Discussions were ongoing ahead of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s planned trip next week to meet with NATO allies in Brussels and Slovakia, which along with Poland and Romania has indicated a willingness to transfer military aid to its embattled neighbor. Slovakia also possesses the S-300 surface-to-air missile system, which is used to shoot down enemy aircraft and is familiar to the Ukrainians. The administration is facing backlash over its decision earlier this week to scuttle Poland’s proposal that would have sent a number of its MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine via a transfer “free of charge” to the United States.
On Friday, a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the United States sent a letter to President Biden asking him to transfer manned and unmanned aircraft to Ukraine, saying that “despite heroic and skilled resistance,” the Russians had achieved air superiority over the Ukrainians. Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), a former Army Ranger who is among the signatories, said the administration was drawing a nonsensical distinction between acceptable weapons and those it considers potentially too escalatory. “I don’t believe there is a distinction between providing a MiG and providing a Javelin and a Stinger,” he said. “These are defensive systems; we are not providing offensive capabilities because Ukraine is not on the offense, all they’re doing is fighting for their survival and trying to maintain their democracy against a Vladimir Putin invasion.” Rep. Michael Waltz (R.-Fla.), who has served in Special Forces units and also signed the letter, said that transferring S-300 systems and components of them, such as radar, could be helpful.
The Ukrainians could benefit, too, from counter-battery radar systems, which scan for the originating locations of incoming artillery fire, and its equipment they’ve asked for before, Waltz said. “At a minimum, once the Russians know you have that, they won’t be able to just sit there and lob round after round after round,” Waltz said. “It degrades their ability to just sit there and pummel you. They have to move, obviously, because now you have the ability to counter-battery.”
The Ukraine military has 56 fighter jets left and is using them 5-10 hours per day. Without spare parts, they'll begin falling out of the sky due to maintanance issues.
After the Afghanistan evacuation fiasco-disaster, I hoped the Pentagon was done with shameful operations. Now comes its denial of the Polish MiGs.
Perhaps NATO should use Slovakia as a Ukraine resupply hub. It has both the standard EU railroad track gauge, and the slightly wider Ukraine railroad track gauge.