Despite Blinken’s Enthusiastic ‘Green Light,’ Pentagon Says U.S. Does ‘Not Support’ Transfer of Jets to Ukraine After Polish Proposal

On Sunday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Sen. Marco Rubio enthusiastically endorsed NATO member Poland providing aircraft to Ukraine and the United States then providing planes to Poland to “backfill” or make up the difference. But following a public proposal from Poland that Fox’s Jennifer Griffin said came as a surprise to U.S. officials, the Pentagon today backed off the plan altogether.

Blinken said that NATO countries have a “green light” to provide fighter jets to Ukraine, and Sen. Rubio said it “would be great” if that happened.

Polish officials announced the country was prepared to provide those aircraft, but to the United States at Ramstein Air Base in Germany rather than directly to Ukraine; a public announcement that “blindsided” U.S. officials, according to Jennifer Griffin.

At Wednesday’s briefing, Pentagon Spokesman John Kirby said that the U.S. doesn’t think the planes will be all that useful and do not support the idea of sending them.

Kirby said that Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin spoke with Poland’s Minister of Defense Mariusz Błaszczak, and “stressed that we do not support the transfer of additional fighter aircraft to the Ukrainian Air Force at this time and therefore have no desire to see them in our custody, either.”

Kirby offered several reasons for the Pentagon’s point of view, saying that other weapons have proven more effective, that Russian air defense is formidable, and that “adding aircraft to the Ukrainian inventory is not likely to significantly change the effectiveness of the Ukrainian Air Force relative to Russian capabilities.”

“The intelligence community has assessed that the transfer of MiG-29s to Ukraine may be mistaken as escalatory and could result in significant Russian reaction that might increase the prospects of a military escalation with NATO,” he said. “Therefore, we also assess the transfer of the MiG-29s to Ukraine to be high-risk.”

Several reporters, including Griffin, asked about the decision.

“With regard to the Polish proposal on the MiG transfers, would it be correct to say that you just close the door on this transfer, whether it’s done through the United States or through any other NATO country?” asked the AP’s Robert Burns first.

“We’re going to continue to talk to the Ukrainians about their needs, and we’re going to continue to talk to allies and partners about how to best fill those needs,” Kirby said in his response. “But it’s our assessment right now for all the reasons that I gave you that we don’t believe additional aircraft is is the most effective answer to meeting those needs in the conflict.”

Kirby added that “sovereign nations can decide for themselves what they want to do,” but was clear that such decisions would not involve a transfer via a U.S. base. “This idea, the proposal of transferring these jets to our custody, them for then transferring to Ukraine, that is something that we are not going to explore right now,” he said.

Jennifer Griffin asked about the difference between “providing Javelins and Stingers” as opposed to “MiGs or fighter jets,” asking whether it wasn’t “splitting hairs” about what might be provocative to Vladimir Putin.

“There’s no splitting hairs, Jen. I think we take seriously the intelligence community’s assessments and their views based on the information that they have available to them, and it’s their assessment, one in which the Secretary concurs, that the transfer of combat aircraft right now could be mistaken by Mr. Putin and the Russians as an escalatory step.”

CNN’s Oren Liebermann then asked whether the Pentagon is “actively discouraging the transfer of fighter jets to Ukraine” or whether it’s just that the United States “won’t be part of this and it remains a Polish decision.”

“What I’m talking about today is this particular proposal about the MiG 29s, as I mentioned to Bob, Sovereign nations unilaterally deciding to make decisions about providing security assistance to Ukraine,” he said. “And they have that right to do that, and it’s not our place to speak for them or what they may want to do.”

“We just felt it was important since this proposal involved a transfer to U.S. custody, that we believed it was important to lay flat our concerns about that. And that’s what we’ve done here,” he said.

So although the administration was bullish on sending jets to Ukraine on Sunday, Kirby today said that the Pentagon does “not support the transfer of additional fighter aircraft” to the country. Under questioning from reporters, he shifted his tone slightly to more of a washing-of-hands rather than disapproval.

Watch the clips above, via C-SPAN.