The Chancellery of the Prime Minister announced on Sunday that Poland will not send its fighters to Ukraine and will not allow using its airports. “Poland significantly helps in other areas”. Paweł Soloch, head of the National Security Bureau (BBN) stated on Monday, March 7, that there were no decisions and the lease of the fighters is not anticipated. The decisions were discussed among the NATO allies.
On Sunday, March 6, the Financial Times reported that the United States is working with Warsaw on an agreement that will allow leasing Polish fighters to Ukraine. Under the agreement, Ukraine would receive Russian-made combat aircraft from Poland, while the US would provide Poland with F-16 aircraft. Hours later, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Poland’s plan to send fighter jets to Ukraine had received a “green light” from the US and that the Biden administration would elaborate on that concept.
Margaret Brennan on CBS’s “Face the Nation” program asked Blinken: If, for example, the Polish government, a NATO member, wants to send fighters, will it get the green light from the US?
Blinken replied, “It’ll get the green light. In fact, we are now talking to our Polish friends about how we could meet their needs if they actually decided to deliver these fighters to the Ukrainians”.
The statement of the American secretary of state was confirmed in ABC’s This Week program by the US ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield, who said that the US is “in close consultations on this matter with the Polish government, as well as with our other NATO allies. We have in no way opposed the delivery of these fighters to Ukraine by the Polish government”.
Referring to this information, the head of the National Security Bureau, Paweł Soloch commented “We are part of the alliance, but Poland takes decisions sovereignly. Any action we perform, even any planning, is agreed upon within the alliance with our allies. It is clear that we are a sovereign state, we can make some decisions sovereignly, but we will not make any decisions without consulting NATO and receiving adequate guarantees for our potential actions”.
Adrian Andrzejewski