After the Leopard handover, the West began to discuss the supply of aircraft to Kyiv, Politico

According to Western officials, despite the fact that Washington has declared that the transfer of fighter jets to Ukraine is still out of the question, everything may change, because that is what they said about HIMARS and tanks.

Following the news of the transfer of American Abrams and German Leopard 2 heavy tanks to Kyiv, the Ukrainian military and diplomats, with the support of their Baltic allies, are promoting the idea that the next logical step in supporting Ukraine would be the supply of aircraft. This was reported by Politico on Thursday, January 26, with reference to the words of Western officials.

“The next natural step will be fighter jets,” the newspaper quoted a diplomat from one of the Northern European countries as saying.

According to journalists, many officials and diplomats in Europe have said that their governments no longer consider the idea of supplying planes to Kyiv futile, but fears of escalation remain high.

“Washington informed Kyiv that the supply of aircraft “is excluded for the time being. There is a red line there, but last summer we had a HIMARS red line and it moved. Then it was battle tanks, and it is also moving,” the diplomat added.

The second high-ranking diplomat of one of the European countries also emphasized that the supply situation may change.

“Fighters are absolutely unthinkable today, but we can discuss it in two or three weeks,” the official said.

It is reported that the defense ministers of Ukraine’s allies are to hold another summit in February 2023 at the US military base Ramstein in southwestern Germany, where aviation and air support are expected to be the main focus.

In addition, last week the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, Wopke Hoekstra, said in the country’s parliament that his cabinet will consider the possibility of supplying F-16 fighter jets if Kyiv requests them.

In December, Slovak Foreign Minister Rastislav Kachera told Interfax-Ukraine that his government is ready to hand over Soviet MiG-29 fighter jets to Kyiv and is discussing with NATO partners and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky how to do it.

Other senior Western politicians are far less sanguine. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz ruled out the supply of fighter jets on Wednesday, January 25, citing the need to prevent further military escalation.

“There will be no deliveries of fighter jets to Ukraine. This was clearly stated very early on, including by the US president,” Scholz said.

Meanwhile, some officials believe that the discussion in Ramstein next month will focus on developing a contingency plan in case the fighter jets are urgently needed in the future, rather than on concluding an agreement on the immediate supply.

According to the publication, Ukraine’s European allies foresee a conflict that could last another three to five years, or even longer, and there are fears that the West is close to the limit of what it can provide without provoking an extreme response from Moscow.

“Unwritten policy” of arms supply to Ukraine

According to Politico, early last year Western allies agreed to an “unwritten policy” not to supply Ukraine with a full complement of weapons immediately after the invasion, fearing that “we would provoke a big response from Russia,” said a third senior diplomat from another European government.

It was believed that the West should provide its support gradually, assessing Russia’s reaction at each step.

“Many countries in the West believe that if we supplied Ukraine with all the equipment they asked for at the first stage of the war, there would be a strong reaction from Russia, including a nuclear one. You can call it a process of getting used to [the Kremlin],” the diplomat said.

“The strategy is a slow but steady increase in Western support, from anti-tank Javelins and man-portable air defense systems such as Stingers to HIMARS and more recently Patriot surface-to-air missiles, tanks and armored vehicles. So the supply of aircraft is ” only a matter of time,” predicted one of the European diplomats.

European policymakers agree that the West will first want to exhaust all other air support options, including more strike drones and possibly long-range missiles. Washington also recently approved the delivery of Cold War-era Zuni unguided missiles, which the armed forces could launch from their Soviet-made MiG aircraft.

Washington is preparing to discuss the supply of fighter jets to Kyiv

European diplomats have also pointed to recent US decisions as evidence that Washington is preparing to discuss the jets.

So, in July of last year, the House of Representatives of the US Congress approved the allocation of 100 million dollars for the training of Ukrainian pilots to fly on American fighter jets, and in October Ukraine announced that a group of several dozen pilots had been selected for training on Western fighter jets.

Before that, in August 2022, Colin Kahl, the deputy minister of defense for policy, told the media that “it is quite likely that in the future Western aircraft may become part of the complex” of weapons provided to Ukraine.

“Logistical nightmare”

The West is convinced that sending the planes will be a serious logistical test for Ukraine’s allies.

American F-15 and F-16 aircraft require long and high-quality runways, which Ukraine does not have. Experts say that it will be easy for Russia to detect any attempt to create operational bases and strike them.

US-made F-18s or Swedish-made Gripens would be more suitable because they can take off from shorter runways and require less maintenance, according to Justin Bronk, senior airpower researcher at British think tank RUSI. But both aircraft are in relative short supply.

Swedish Defense Minister Paul Johnson told reporters on Wednesday, January 25 that Sweden “has no plans to send Gripens to Ukraine.”

Other combat aircraft, such as the French-made Rafales, may require the presence of a significant number of Western civilians in Ukraine to repair the aircraft and prepare them for flight. These people will automatically become targets for Russian attacks.

But when asked whether the gift of the planes would not be an escalation, the representative of the French government noted that Ukraine had already received “super-violent” weapons from the West, such as “Caesar” guns.

We will remind, on January 26, the coordinator of the White House for strategic communications for national security, John Kirby, said that Leopard 2 tanks will appear in Ukraine faster than American Abrams tanks. They can affect the front.

Earlier, on January 25, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Andriy Melnyk said that Germany should transfer more military equipment to the Armed Forces of Ukraine to reflect Russia’s repeated offensive. In particular, it is about fighters, submarines and warships.