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White House press secretary Jen Psaki struggled to explain why the Biden administration continues to reject Poland’s offer to send MiG-29 jet fighters to Ukraine despite President Volodymyr Zelensky’s repeated pleas for the warplanes to help his country repel the Russian invasion.
She was asked during Tuesday’s White House briefing about the “logic train” of her explanation about President Biden’s determination that sending the MiGs would “more directly” involve the US in the war.
“It’s not the president’s assessment, or certainly not my assessment, it was the assessment of the Department of Defense. And a big part of their assessment was related to where these planes would take off from and how would you get them into Ukraine,” Psaki responded.
“So that was something they were exploring and discussing with a range of partners. But their assessment was also based specifically on the transfer of it to Ukraine and that that may be mistaken as escalatory,” she continued.
But the reporter, David Sanger of the New York Times, asked whether the planes departing from a Polish base or one in Germany would make them targets.
“It could be perceived as escalatory,” Psaki said.
Psaki was then pressed on the distinction between transferring anti-aircraft defense systems that originated in the West to Ukraine and the Polish planes.
She said their weapons’ transfer doesn’t entail “taking off from a NATO air base.”
But Sanger said the military equipment still comes from Western nations.
“Correct,” Psaki said.
Sanger then asked if the US would be willing to provide the kind of anti-missile systems it sends to Israel to help ward off rocket attacks to Ukraine.
“Those discussions happen at the Department of Defense, and we talked a lot about the risk assessment as it relates to the planes, but they make assessments about what to provide to be most effective,” Psaki said.
She also said that there are discussions among military and defense “counterparts” about what military equipment is needed in Ukraine when asked if the US is encouraging other NATO partners to transfer fighter jets.
Biden has rejected Poland’s offer to send the Soviet-era fighter jets to the US air base in Ramstein, Germany, with the understanding that the US would replace the planes with newer F-16s.
It was unclear how the MiGs would be transferred to Ukraine — either by Polish or US pilots.
But the administration called the proposition too risky because it would provoke Russia and potentially widen the fighting.
Get the latest updates in the Russia-Ukraine conflict with The Post’s live coverage.
“The idea that we’re going to send in offensive equipment and have planes and tanks and trains going in with American pilots and American crews — just understand, don’t kid yourself, no matter what y’all say, that’s called World War III,” Biden told a gathering of Democrats last Friday in Philadelphia.
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