Slovakia reported on Monday that the delivery of thirteen MiG-29 fighters to Ukraine has been completed, as promised last March together with Poland, who pledged thirty of these Soviet-made fighter jets.
Slovakia’s Defense Minister Jaroslav Nad announced this via his Twitter social network profile. »The thirteen Slovak MiG-29s have been safely delivered to the Ukrainian Air Force,» he wrote.
»Proud to be on the right side, doing the right thing to help protect lives. We stand with Ukraine,» he added in a message in which he mentioned Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelenski and his counterpart, Oleksi Reznikov.
For their part, the Ukrainian authorities continued on Monday to demand from their partners the delivery of U.S. F-16 fighter jets, much more modern than the MiG-29s, which Kiev has repeatedly described as »obsolete» compared to Russian fighters.
»We need to protect the country from aerial terrorism. We need F-16 aircraft to cover the front line and gain air superiority,» said Ukrainian Armed Forces Air Force spokesman Yuri Ignat.
»They are needed, among other things, to protect Ukraine’s critical infrastructure targets, including seven nuclear power plants,» Ignat told Ukrainian television on Monday.
In line with earlier criticism, Ignat lamented that the current MiG-29s are not capable of effectively shooting down cruise missiles and drones, despite the fact that Ukrainian pilots are »squeezing as much as possible» out of the capabilities of these Soviet fighters.
Despite Ukraine’s insistence on getting such aircraft, the U.S. Pentagon has ruled out such a possibility as »it would not help» at the current point in the war, as the paperwork to deploy these fighters to the battlefield would take about 18 months.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
