Comment by T-A | Hacker News Reader

Comment by T-A | Hacker News Reader

The Polish proposal is so strange I find it hard to believe it's in good faith.

Look at a map: Poland has a long common border with Western Ukraine, but instead it offers to fly the other way, to Ramstein, more than a thousand kilometers from Ukraine.

Once the planes are in Ramstein, what do you do? Fly them back to Poland? That makes no sense, and according to the article, the idea is that "the Polish government would sidestep the logistical challenge of getting the jets over the border".

That leaves the three other NATO countries bordering Ukraine: Slovakia, Hungary and Romania.

But Hungary refuses to let lethal weapons transit its territory en route to Ukraine, so strike that. Slovakia shares only a short border with Ukraine - about 80 kilometers - and it's sandwiched between Poland and Hungary; too easy for Russia to watch.

That leaves only Romania. How do you get there from NATO territory? Not through Hungary (see above), so you're left with a ridiculous roundabout route like Germany -> France -> Italy -> Greece -> Bulgaria -> Romania.

Do they all agree to it? Why in particular would Romania be willing to tackle "the logistical challenge of getting the jets over the border" which Poland (and Hungary) won't touch with a bargepole?

You're missing the point, it was never a logistical issue. Poland wanted to avoid giving the migs directly so they proposed that they would transfer the ownership to the US for the US to transfer to Ukraine. Even better if you mix all the planes from other NATO countries to lower the risk for any one particular country. The planes can then go to Ukraine from the US removing Poland from the deal.

> You're missing the point

No, I'm underscoring it.

> The planes can then go to Ukraine from the US

How?

Logistics were never the issue. US was pressurising Poland and other countries for at least a week to transfer the planes to Ukraine. Poland doesn't want to do by itself for obvious reasons so they've proposed for the US to take ownership and transfer the migs themselves and provide compensation down the line.

> US was pressurising Poland and other countries for at least a week to transfer the planes to Ukraine.

US has been portrayed (almost certainly accurately) as an obstacle to countries doing it directly since NATO (almost certainly at US direction) shot the original leaked idea down; the recent “green light” for direct transfer was no doubt an attempt to not be seen as the barrier to direct transfer, but hardly constitutes pressure to do it, and if the US wanted it done they could have explained not doing it in a way which wasn't clearly an argument for why transferring planes isn't a good idea, but was instead an argument for why the particular proposal made by Poland wasn't.

In fact it's been reported in many sources that it was the other way round https://m.dw.com/pl/niemiecka-prasa-o-mig-29-dla-ukrainy-pol...

I think this article gets to the real issue; all the procedural problems are because everyone thinks the planes are a suboptimal idea that isn't worth the escalation risk, but no one wants to tell Ukraine that.

Which makes it look like the US just bit the bullet on that and stopped playing the deflection game everyone has been playing.

> Logistics were never the issue

Of course.

> transfer the migs themselves

Again: how?

Fly them through Poland or through Romania - it doesn't matter. It was never about logistics. The reason Poland wanted to do it this was to involve US and Germany indirectly in the deal.

> Fly them through Poland

That means Ukrainian MiG-29s crossing into Ukraine from Poland.

If Poland had simply handed over the planes to the Ukrainians in Poland, the result would have been... Ukrainian MiG-29s crossing into Ukraine from Poland.

If Poland had instead handed over the planes to US troops in Poland, without moving them, and the US had then handed them over to the Ukrainians, the result would have been... Ukrainian MiG-29s crossing into Ukraine from Poland.

So you get exactly the same result in all three cases. What Poland doesn't want is Ukrainian MiG-29s crossing into Ukraine from Poland.

> or through Romania

Yes, that's what this is really about.

You do realize those are rugged cold war planes? They have zero problem landing on ordinary two lane road. You can fly to the border, land in front of crossing, push planes over the border and let Ukrainians do whatever they want.

> You can fly to the border, land in front of crossing, push planes over the border and let Ukrainians do whatever they want.

That doesn't solve the real issue, which is, AGAIN, that Poland does not want those planes crossing into Ukraine from its border. Whether they fly in or roll in is utterly irrelevant.

and you know that how? because as its stands its US who is refusing something. US claimed Poland would be giving MIGs for almost two weeks without consulting Polish politicians. Now that they have free reign over the planes all of a sudden "its complicated and untenable"?

> and you know that how

It's obvious, as already explained:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30621764

In the unlikely case that further elucidation really is needed: Poland didn't need to move the MiGs in order to hand them over to the US. Moving them to Ramstein makes a difference only if they then enter Ukraine from another country. So that's what Poland was really after.

"you throw the rock"

"no, you do it, I'd get wrecked if they knew it was me"

"do it you pussy"

"that's misogyn-"

"THROW THE ROCKS"

No one throws the rock, nuclear holocaust avoided?

IMO it's Poland telling American and Germany to assume risk of escalation. Reporting from 3+ days ago read like US pressuring eastern blocks to ship planes to UKR to provide runway access which puts them in crosshairs of RU retaliation.

Let’s be real Poland is probably tired of getting invaded and would rather someone else take the heat for once

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