DECRYPTION – President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned the West’s “unbroken” promises to supply Soviet-made fighter jets. But now in Washington they believe that such a program is of little interest.
During the 1980s, the MiG-29 established itself as one of the best combat aircraft of its generation. “Its engines smoked, we saw it well,” recalls General (2S) Patrick Charet, who fought him aboard the Mirage 2000. “It was a beast, a very strong twin-engine engine,” recalls the former commander of the Strategic Air Force, “and, before most of all, it had a helmet-mounted sight that allowed the missile heads to be aimed at the pilot’s eye, which at that time was an outstanding technological advantage.
Read also War in Ukraine: did the Westerners keep their “promise” to supply fighter jets?
Can these aircraft, whose primary mission is air defense rather than ground support, give the Ukrainians an edge in the conflict? If air supremacy is essential and very often the first controversial goal of any war, then the few MiG-29s that the former Warsaw Pact countries could provide to Ukraine will not be able, according to experts interviewed by Le Figaro, to shake up a firm hold on the Russian airwaves. While the West initially promised to provide some of the Mikoyan-Gurevich requested by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the United States and Poland finally backed out this week. “Currently, the Air Force has several fully operational aviation squadrons. We believe that adding fighters to the Ukrainian forces will not significantly change their effectiveness against Russian capabilities…
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