Things are complex…..
The East European countries want American replacement fighter jets….
The Biden admin is ‘thinking this over’….
The Ukrainian President is begging for the jets…..
Russia does have an Air Force….
Several Eastern European countries like Poland, Bulgaria and Slovakia retain dozens of Russian-made aircraft in their inventories and have been hesitant to give up those planes without guarantees from the U.S. that they could replace them.
Poland has been modernizing its aircraft fleet since 2006, when it first started flying F-16s, and in 2020 signed a $4.6 billion deal for 32 F-35s, the first of which will arrive in 2024, making those older Russian-made planes expendable.
The issue of sending aircraft into the fight is more complex than the effort underway by over two dozen European countries to send anti-armor and anti-air defensive weapons to Ukraine. A steady stream of U.S. and British military planes have been landing in Poland in recent days filled with those missiles, along with other munitions, rations, and small arms and ammunition….