Vice President Kamala Harris will visit Poland and Romania on Wednesday as the United States and its NATO allies seek to boost Ukrainian fighters while avoiding getting caught up in a wider war with Russia.
But diplomatic turbulence made headlines Tuesday after the Polish government said it would give all of its MiG-29 fighter jets to the U.S., apparently agreeing to an arrangement that would allow them to be used by Ukraine’s military. In turn, the U.S. would supply Poland with U.S.-made jets with “corresponding capabilities.”
But Polish officials didn’t run that idea past the Biden administration before going public with it, as the Pentagon quickly dismissed the idea as not “a tenable one.”
Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby said in a statement that the prospect of jets departing from a U.S./NATO base in Germany to fly into airspace contested with Russia in the Ukraine war is concerning. He said it’s not clear to the U.S. that there is a substantive rationale for it.
The Pentagon said the U.S. will continue to talk to Poland about the matter.
President Joe Biden has applauded Poland and other eastern European countries for stepping up in the midst of what’s become an enormous humanitarian crisis that is only growing. Some 2 million people have fled Ukraine and more than half of the refugees have arrived in Poland.
Latest developments:
►Congressional leaders reached a bipartisan deal early Wednesday by providing $13.6 billion to help Ukraine and…
