Blinken says NATO countries have “green light” to send fighter jets to Ukraine | Hacker News Reader

Blinken says NATO countries have “green light” to send fighter jets to Ukraine

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17 pointsmudro_zboris15 comments

To be clear, Blinken is saying e.g. Poland can send Ukraine its old MiGs. He is not saying a no-fly zone has been authorized.

And Poland has stated - repeatedly - that it has no interest in sending its MiGs to Ukraine. I guess given the situation they prefer to have their own air force...

Yes

"Polskie MiG-i nie trafią na Ukrainę. Ponadto Polska nie ma żadnych Mig-ów. Nie wiemy, skąd Ukraina ma MiG-i. Pragniemy zauważyć, że MiG-ów jest bardzo wiele i można je kupić w dowolnym sklepie z MiG-ami, na przykład na terenie Federacji Rosyjskiej."

"Polish MiGs will not go to Ukraine. Moreover, Poland does not own any Migs. We do not know where Ukraine got the MiGs from. We would like to emphasize that MiGs are plentiful and can be bought in any MiG shop, for example, in the Russian Federation."

Source?

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Air_Force#Current_inven... - Poland has currently 23 MiG-29 in service.

These are not the Migs you are looking for. Poland has never owned any Russian fighters.

Took me a while :)

> Poland has stated - repeatedly - that it has no interest in sending its MiGs to Ukraine

They have no interest in diminishing their fleet. The deal being discussed is the U.S. replacing those MiGs with F-16s [1].

[1] https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/us-in-talks-with-pol...

That's a win win for Poland. At this point they're never going to want to be dependent on Russian hardware. Nor to be in the position of funding the Russian war machine.

Only a win-win for Poland if they actually receive the F16s and parts and training free of charge from the US. AND if there's no blow-back from Russia (as has been promised).

Yes, Russia can threaten other countries with words but what options they really have to retaliate against NATO country? Their military is being grinded down in Ukraine, they are not even capable to take full control of Ukraine air space.

Yes, Russia can use some missiles to attack Poland but this would be attack on NATO country and it will provoke direct response. What previous wars have demonstrated is that NATO air force can destroy conventional ground forces in matter of days and based on current state of affairs - Russian forces in Ukraine do not appear to be a possible exemption. In fact they are there like sitting ducks waiting to be slaughtered.

To be honest, the paranoid in me simply thinks that Russian army weakness is a clever Putin ploy to attract NATO into war. If it is like this, Poland must send planes to Ukraine because this forces Russia to make the move first, if it dares of course.

If Russia attacked Poland NATO would knock out every power plant and major bridge in Russia within an hour. Putin would likely be dead within 20 minutes.

I don't think Poland needs authorization from the US for anything...

This is horrific, and we absolutely should not be escalating this situation.

Putin’s invasion is absolutely immoral, and I am horrified by the destruction we have witnessed.

Now my fear is that we are sleepwalking into a nuclear war. We must stop this madness before it kills us all.

'sleepwalking'? We are running into it eager to 'outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes' [0].

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBow1ToJBFE

The thing is, if you show weakness then it will attract a nuclear force to attack you. Nuclear weapons are great detergent of war but only when you are willing to use them. Yes, it is a paradox. The problem has been that United States has demonstrated a weakness to use nuclear weapons against Russia and this has attracted Russia to attack Ukraine and may even provoke a nuclear attack against another country that is potentially willing to join NATO like Finland or Sweden.

As nuclear force you can avoid war when you can convince your enemy to believe that you definitely will use nuclear if they try to provoke you.

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