Poland announced it will send planes to Germany for the US to deliver to Ukraine. The US was not informed of Poland’s decision and does not know how to respond.
We need to back up a bit and start from the beginning.
Yesterday I reported US in Talks With Europe to Ban Russian Oil, With Poland to Supply Planes
On NBC’s Meet the Press with Chuck Todd, secretary of state Antony Blinken discussed sending planes to Ukraine via Poland and with the EU on banning Russian oil.
Todd: This idea of essentially U.S. fighter jets to Poland; in exchange, Poland sends Russian-made jets to Ukraine – is that going to happen? And how quickly can it happen?
Blinken: We’re talking very actively about this, looking at what we can do to backfill Poland if it chooses to send the MiGs and the Su planes that it has to Ukraine, how we can help by backfilling what they’re giving to the Ukrainians. So that’s in very active discussion as we speak.
Todd: So we are 100 percent going to do this? If any of these NATO nations that have these Russian-made planes donate them to the Ukrainian – Ukraine, we’re going to backfill if they’re NATO Allies?
Blinken: Well, look. We’ve got to – we have to work through each case on its own merits. We’ve got to make sure we’re able to do something if that’s what a country is requesting in return for sharing the jets that they have.
In a TWEET now removed, Poland emphatically stated it had no intention of sending planes to Ukraine.
In the last hour we now see TWEETs like these.
Poland expects F16s jets from the US for sending Poland’s MIGs to Germany for the US to send to Ukraine.
US State Department Caught Off Guard
Poland ready to place all its MIG-29 jets at the disposal of U.S.
Here is the Official Polish Announcement.
The authorities of the Republic of Poland, after consultations between the President and the Government, are ready to deploy – immediately and free of charge – all their MIG-29 jets to the Ramstein Air Base and place them at the disposal of the Government of the United States of America.
At the same time, Poland requests the United States to provide us with used aircraft with corresponding operational capabilities. Poland is ready to immediately establish the conditions of purchase of the planes.
The Polish Government also requests other NATO Allies – owners of MIG-29 jets – to act in the same vein.
Reuters reports Poland ready to place all its MIG-29 jets at the disposal of U.S.
Poland is supporting Kyiv with defensive weapons, but has said it would not send jets to Ukraine, as it is not a direct party to the conflict between Ukraine – which is not a NATO ally – and Russia.
“…any decisions on delivering offensive weapons have to be taken by the entire NATO and on a unanimous basis,” Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Tuesday during a joint news conference with his Norwegian counterpart in Oslo.
“This is why we are ready to give all of our fleet of jet fighters to Ramstein, but we are not ready to make any moves on our own because, as I said, we are not party to this war,” he added.
Poland does not want direct involvement. It wants the US to have direct involvement by giving the US its MIGs free of charge for the US to deliver to Ukraine.
US Shocked
CNN notes the US State Department Reaction
A top State Department official said Tuesday that Poland did not consult with the United States prior to issuing its statement about readiness to transfer jets to the US in Germany.
“I saw that announcement by the government of Poland as I was literally driving here today,” Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland said during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing.
“So to my knowledge, it wasn’t pre-consulted with us that they plan to give these planes to us,” she said.
“I look forward when this hearing is over to getting back to my desk and seeing how we will respond to this proposal of theirs to give the planes to us,” she said, noting that the US and Poland have been in consultations for a couple of days on this topic.
A senior US defense official, meanwhile, told CNN that they’ve seen the Polish government’s announcement and “have nothing to offer at this time.”
It remains unclear where the US will pull the F-16s from in order to possibly send them to Poland or other Eastern European countries in the near term. But members of Congress are supportive of the effort. Sen. Ben Cardin asked Nuland for the Biden administration to notify them if there were going to be any delays to getting these F-16s to Poland.
U.S. lawmakers pressure Biden to help with transfer of European aircraft to Ukraine
Adding fat to the fire U.S. lawmakers pressure Biden to help with transfer of European aircraft to Ukraine
And that is what secretary of state Antony Blinken told Meet the Press on Sunday that he wanted.
Poland just said yes, with a huge twist.
Addendum – US Says No
Addendum
My reply to the Pentagon and Secretary of State
Did the US Think Anything Through?
This post originated on MishTalk.Com.
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Mish
has not even announced its own package of counter-sanctions. Yet an
official decree “On Temporary Order of Obligations to Certain Foreign
Creditors,” which allows Russian companies to settle their debts in
rubles, provides a hint of what’s to come.
Russian
counter-measures all revolve around this new presidential decree,
signed last Saturday, which economist Yevgeny Yushchuk defines as a
“nuclear retaliatory landmine.” .
It
works like this: to pay for loans obtained from a sanctioning country
exceeding 10 million rubles a month, a Russian company does not have to
make a transfer. They ask for a Russian bank to open a correspondent
account in rubles under the creditor’s name. Then the company transfers
rubles to this account at the current exchange rate, and it’s all
perfectly legal.
Payments
in foreign currency only go through the Central Bank on a case-by-case
basis. They must receive special permission from the Government
Commission for the Control of Foreign Investment.
What this mean in practice is that the bulk of the $478
billion or so in Russian foreign debt may “disappear” from the balance
sheets of western banks. The equivalent in rubles will be deposited
somewhere, in Russian banks, but western banks, as things stand, can’t
access it.”
The planes are going to Ramstein in Germany, and then ???
No collusion but it’s been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Putin interfered in multiple elections around the world. Payback is a bitch.