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Vice President Harris is heading to Warsaw to show solidarity with Poland and Romania, as both the countries are neighbours of Ukraine, which is facing a Russian invasion.
Harris is visiting Poland just a day after the U.S. rejected the Polish proposal to share its Russia-made fighter jets with Ukraine to take on the Russian forces. The U.S. has said that Harris’s trip will not be overshadowed by the public rejection of Poland’s proposal.
Polish proposal caught the U.S. off guard as it had not expected this unique proposal, according to which Poland offered to transfer all its Russian-made MiG fighter jets to a U.S. base in Germany that could be in turn transferred to Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had asked U.S. lawmakers for Russian-made MiG fighter jets that his fighter pilots were trained in. ( https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/08/poland-mig-29-jets-us-ukraine )
In return, Warsaw requested the United States to provide it “with used aircraft with corresponding operational capabilities.” Poland claimed that it was ready to “immediately establish the conditions of purchase of the planes.”
In a statement, the U.S. Department of Defense said that the prospect of the jets taking off from the base in Germany “to fly into airspace that is contested with Russia over Ukraine raises serious concerns for the entire Nato alliance”. Poland is a member of Nato. ( https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/2960180/statement-by-pentagon-press-secretary-john-f-kirby-on-security-assistance-to-uk/ )
While the U.S. was open to the idea of sending jets to Ukraine, the process suggested by Poland was not a “tenable one” according to the Department of Defense. The U.S. feels that by transferring the planes to American custody rather than directly handing them over to the Ukrainians, Warsaw could be side-stepping the challenge of transferring the planes across the border into Ukraine. ( https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/08/poland-transfers-mig-fighters-to-the-us-as-ukraine-asks-for-help-00015259 )
The fact that Russia has warned anybody supporting Ukraine’s air force with consequences including retaliation is also being taken into account as Nato doesn’t want to be sucked into the conflict directly.
Read more:
U.S. rejects Poland’s offer to send MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/9/us-rejects-poland-offer-to-send-mig-29-fighter-jets-to-ukraine