Ukraine's quest for more fighter jets hits its latest obstacle: US concerns about starting a war between NATO and Russia

• Over the past two weeks, European plans to provide fighter jets to Ukraine have emerged and stumbled.
• On Tuesday, Poland announced that it would turn its MiG-29s over to the US for potential delivery to Ukraine.

Is Ukraine about to get more MiG-29 fighter jets to help defend against Russia's invasion? Over the last few days, the answer has shifted from "yes" to "no" to "maybe."

While Ukraine's military continues to batter Russian forces on the ground, the airspace remains contested. On Tuesday, a Pentagon official said both sides were still flying missions every day and retained their air-defense missile capabilities.

Providing more jets to Ukraine's Air Force would help it take on the larger Russian Aerospace Force, but the transfer of foreign MiG-29s to Ukraine is a fraught issue — and far from a done deal.

MiG ups and downs

Reports about supplying Soviet-made aircraft to Ukraine surfaced on February 26, when in a "watershed moment" the EU approved a first-of-its-kind transfer of military aid worth 500 million euros to Ukraine.

As part of that aid, European officials discussed providing fighter and attack aircraft to bolster Ukraine's air defenses. On February 27, the EU's top diplomat went public with that plan. "We are going to supply arms and even fighter jets," said Josep Borrel, EU high representative for foreign affairs and security.

Ukraine's foreign minister "has been asking us that they need the type of fighter jets that the Ukrainian army is able to operate," Borrel added. "We know what kind of planes and some [EU] member states have these kinds of planes."

A few hours after Borrel spoke, Alexandre Krauss, a senior adviser to the EU Parliament, said on Twitter that the fighter jets would be delivered within the hour, surprising the world. By the next morning, Krauss had said he misspoke and officials from Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, and Slovakia had also said their countries weren't giving aircraft to anyone.

The effort appeared stalled until this weekend, when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke to US lawmakers and asked them help facilitate the transfer of jets, including MiG-29s, to Ukraine.

Afterward, many of those lawmakers spoke approvingly of sending jets, unmanned aircraft, and billions in aid to the embattled country.

Whose aircraft?

Only a handful of countries have aircraft that meet Ukraine's needs.

Kyiv is only interested in aircraft that its pilots can fly and its maintainers can fix, and its air force only flies Soviet-origin aircraft, so US-made jets, such as the F-16 and F-15, and European-made aircraft, like Rafales, Typhoons, or Gripens, are out of the question.

The pool of eligible aircraft is limited to three — the MiG-29, the Su-25, and the MiG-21 — that active with NATO militaries, namely Bulgaria, Croatia, Poland, and Slovakia.

Of these, the MiG-29, an air-superiority fighter, would be the best option to take on Russia's aerial forces. The MiG-21 is an antiquated fighter jet — the ones in service with Ukraine have been retired — while the Su-25 is designed for close air support.

Poland has 28 MiG-29s, though not all are operational. Ukrainian pilots trained on the MiG-29 may be able to operate them almost immediately, and with several dozen of its own MiG-29s in service before the war, Ukraine's air force would likely have spare parts and munitions on hand.

US officials say Russia has been unable to establish air superiority over all of Ukraine, meaning those MiG-29s, if delivered, could keep flying missions well into the future.

'Send us planes'

Giving aircraft to a non-allied country as it fights a war with a third party is fraught with legal and geopolitical risks, especially when the third party is a nuclear-armed state with deep-seated suspicion of its NATO neighbors.

It's one thing to be one of dozens of countries that are sending light weapons, ammunition, and anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles. It's completely different for one or a few countries provide multimillion-dollar fighter jets that could take a toll on Russian forces.

Moscow has warned that it would treat direct military support — for example, Ukrainian pilots operating Polish MiG-29s from bases in Poland — as an act of war. A Russian attack on Poland would trigger NATO's collective-defense provision and draw the alliance's 29 other members into the conflict.

Despite the legal and logistical complications, Poland on Tuesday said it was willing to place all of its MiG-29s fighter jets at the immediate disposal of the US, presumably to transfer them to Ukraine, and asked that other NATO allies with MiG-29s follow suit.

To fill the gap created by the transfer, Poland asked the US for "used aircraft with corresponding operational capabilities" — most likely F-16s — and said it was "ready to immediately establish the conditions of purchase" for them.

Sending F-16s to Poland to replace MiG-29s it gives to Ukraine isn't a simple swap. The US can't give Poland F-16s out of its own fleet because it needs them. F-16s are still being produced but other countries have already paid for the ones rolling off the assembly line — including Taiwan, whose defense the US has made a priority.

Those issues aren't necessarily deal-breakers, but to get the most out of the jets, they need to be transferred sooner rather than later. If Russian aircraft claim Ukraine's skies or its missiles destroy Ukraine's airfields, Kyiv would struggle to use its new jets effectively.

On Sunday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US was looking "very, very actively" at how Poland could provide aircraft to Ukraine and how to backfill Poland's fleet. "I can't speak to a timeline, but I can just tell you we're looking at it," Blinken said.

Hours after Poland's announcement, however, the State Department's third-highest ranking diplomat said Poland hadn't "pre-consulted with us" about the offer, and the Defense Department said it did not view Warsaw's proposal as "tenable."

Whether to transfer the jets is ultimately a Polish decision, but having those jets leave "a US/NATO base in Germany to fly into airspace that is contested with Russia over Ukraine raises serious concerns for the entire NATO alliance," chief Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said. "It is simply not clear to us that there is a substantive rationale for it."

On Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked Poland for the offer but criticized the US for its reluctance.

"Listen: We have a war! We do not have time for all these signals. This is not ping pong!" Zelenskyy said. "We ask once again: solve it faster. Do not shift the responsibility, send us planes."

Stavros Atlamazoglou is a defense journalist specializing in special operations, a Hellenic Army veteran (national service with the 575th Marine Battalion and Army HQ), and a Johns Hopkins University graduate.