Ukraine has sent out a call for Russian-made fighter jets.
Germany joined the US in ruling out propositions of sending fighter jets to Ukraine on Wednesday, as Western countries treaded cautiously to avoid a dramatic escalation in their conflict with Russia which has attacked its southern neighbour.
Here is your 10-point guide to this story:
- Germany will certainly not send warplanes to Ukraine, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Wednesday after the United States rejected an offer by Poland to transfer its Russian-made MiG-29 jets to a US base in Germany.
- The US rejection had also prompted the Polish Prime Minister to clarify that any supply of fighter jets to Ukraine must be done jointly by NATO countries.
- Asked about the offer of Polish MIGs, the Kremlin described it as a potentially dangerous and undesirable scenario.
- Ukraine has pleaded with Western nations to provide it with fighter jets to counter a Russian invasion that has forced more than two million refugees to flee the country, and US lawmakers have responded by pushing President Joe Biden's administration to facilitate the transfer of aircraft.
- On Tuesday, Poland said it was ready to deploy all its MIG-29 jets to Ramstein Air Base in Germany and put them at the disposal of the United States, urging other NATO members to do the same. The Pentagon later dismissed the offer as not "tenable".
- "Such a serious decision as supplying planes must be unanimous and unequivocally made by the whole North Atlantic alliance," Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said during a press conference in the Austrian capital Vienna broadcast on Polish television. "We did not agree to supply planes by ourselves because it must be the decision of the whole of NATO," he added.
- Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Pawel Jablonski told public radio station Polskie Radio 1 that Poland had to prioritise its security when considering the supply of jets to Ukraine. "It cannot be that Poland has - as the only NATO country - to take the risk, and the other countries would not have to compensate or share it with us in any way," he said.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has also repeatedly asked the West to implement a no-fly zone over Ukraine, but the US and its NATO allies have rebuffed those calls fearing a direct confrontation with Moscow.
- Russia's Defence Ministry has warned that countries offering airfields to Ukraine for attacks on Russia may be considered as having entered the conflict.
- The MIG-29 is a fighter jet that was developed in the Soviet Union and as Ukraine's military already flies Russian-made aircraft it is the best choice for Ukrainian pilots who already know how to operate them, experts say. Combat pilot training on US-made aircraft can take years and requires a different pipeline for maintenance.
