Slovakia should make a decision on sending MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine, Bratislava Defense Minister Jaroslav Nad said on Thursday, adding that he had already received consent on this matter from Poland, Reuters reports.

“I think it’s time to make a decision. People are dying in Ukraine, we can really help them, there is no place for Slovak politics,” he wrote in a post on his Facebook page, referring to the squadron of 11 MiG-29 aircraft withdrawn from combat operations last summer.

Nad also said that he discussed the matter with Poland’s defense minister on Wednesday and was told that Warsaw would agree to a joint process to transfer this model of aircraft to Kyiv.

It will be recalled that it was the Polish government that exerted strong pressure on Germany to send Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, which Warsaw announced on January 11 that it intends to do so.

Later, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki announced that while his government had submitted a formal request to Berlin for permission for the transfer, as required by NATO’s arms re-export rules, Germany’s negative conclusion would be ignored.

Poland received tanks for Ukraine

Just two days after Morawiecki’s comments, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced on February 25 that Berlin had approved Poland’s request, would grant all similar requests and, in turn, provide Ukraine with a company of 14 Leopard 2 tanks.

On February 24, a year after the start of the Russian invasion, Poland announced during Morawiecki’s visit to Kyiv that the first batch of 4 Leopard 2 tanks had already arrived in Ukraine. Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said on Tuesday that the rest of the promised tanks would be sent to Kyiv by the end of week

Shortly after Chancellor Scholz’s statement on February 25, US President Joe Biden, in turn, announced that the United States would send 31 Abrams tanks to Ukraine.

American media later reported, citing sources familiar with the negotiations, that Germany agreed to send Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine only on the condition that the United States also agreed to send American-made heavy combat vehicles to avoid incurring the wrath of Moscow.

Some analysts note that, in fact, due to this rebound effect of diplomatic pressure, Warsaw would receive both German and American tanks for Kyiv.

Just the other day, the Reuters agency noted that Poland also received the consent of South Korea to transfer self-propelled howitzers “AHS Krab” to Ukraine. At the official level, the government in Seoul, however, claims that it does not help Ukraine militarily, so as not to increase tensions with Russia.

Will the USA again be against sending fighter jets to Ukraine?

As recently as March 8 last year, less than two weeks after the start of the Russian invasion, Poland said it wanted to send all of its MiG-29 aircraft to Ukraine immediately and free of charge. Then the government in Warsaw offered to transfer its planes to the American base in Ramstein in Germany and transfer them to Kyiv through the mediation of the United States.

However, Washington rejected this plan, and the Pentagon called it “unviable”.

At the time, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby cited the logistical “complexity” of such an operation, also stating that “it’s just not clear to us whether there is a substantial justification for it.”

Then, at the beginning of July, the prime minister of Slovakia, Eduard Heger, in turn, raised the issue of the possibility of sending MiG-29 fighters to Ukraine.

“But I don’t want to go into details, because Ukraine asked us not to detail information about them [livrări] equipment,” he said on the TV show CT24, in which he participated together with his Czech colleague Petr Fiala.

Since then, the Slovak government has not made any official statements on the matter, and the defense minister is likely to have recalled Heger’s comments last summer.

In recent months, talks have revolved around the possibility of sending Western fighter jets to Ukraine, with the United States strongly opposing the idea. It is not yet clear whether the administration in Washington has changed its position regarding the transfer to Kyiv of some of the Soviet aircraft inherited from the countries of the former communist bloc.

But it is worth recalling that in March of last year, when Poland first proposed this idea, Washington still had serious doubts about sending any advanced Western systems to Ukraine. For example, the American HIMARS salvo fire systems will arrive in Kyiv only on June 23.

Responding this Thursday to a question about the resumption of negotiations on sending MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine, Andrzej Duda, the head of the administration of the President of Poland, said that if this happens, it will certainly be within the framework of a “broader coalition.”

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