Poland and Slovakia to transfer MiG-29 fleets to Ukraine

In a significant move to support Kyiv’s ongoing battle against invading Russian forces, Poland and Slovakia have pledged to donate their Soviet-era Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-29 Fulcrum fighters to Ukraine in the coming days.

The move was first announced by Polish President Andrzej Duda during a news conference on March 16, following an official meeting with Czech President Petr Pavel in Warsaw, and makes Poland the first NATO member state to formally commit to donating fixed-wing combat aircraft to war-torn Ukraine. During the conference, Duda confirmed that an initial batch of four MiG-29s will be sent to Ukraine in the coming days.

Duda said: “It’s about MiG-29, which are still active and performing air defence duties of Poland’s airspace. Indeed, such a decision was made at the level of state authorities. It can be safely said that we literally send these MiG-29s to Ukraine at the moment. We currently have a dozen or so of these aircraft, and these are MiG-29s, which we took over in the early 1990s from the German Democratic Republic army.

“These are the last years of their [Polish Air Force] service because their technical capabilities. In the coming days, we [will] transfer four MiG-29s to Ukraine in full operational condition. Other aircraft are being serviced and prepared. Their place will be taken by newly delivered FA-50 aircraft from South Korea, the first we expect at the end of the year, and then the F-35 squadrons,” he added.

This statement could be a little bit confusing, as Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said two days prior that Poland’s transfer of MiG-29s to Ukraine “could be done in four-to-six weeks.” Prior to this, Paweł Szrot – head of the Polish Presidential Cabinet – said that the MiG-29 transfer would not involve a large number of aircraft. It remains unclear as to exactly how many MiG-29s will be transferred to Ukraine.

The Polish Air Force currently operates a fleet of approximately 22 single-seat MiG-29 Fulcrum-As and six dual-seat MiG-29UB Fulcrum-Bs, but as President Duda noted, not all of them are actively being flown. Poland is set to phase out its ageing MiG-29 fleet in the near future, replacing the Soviet-era fighter in Polish Air Force service with the Korea Aerospace Industries FA-50GF/FA-50PL Fighting Eagle and Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightning IIs. Poland is scheduled to receive its first 12 baseline FA-50GFs (Gap Fillers) by the end of 2023, followed by 36 FA-50PL-standard aircraft later in the decade. The first of 32 F-35As are expected to arrive in Poland in 2026.

On March 17, Slovak Prime Minister Eduard Heger announced that his government had approved the transfer of 13 MiG-29s to Ukraine, becoming the second NATO nation to do so. Slovakia formally retired its operational MiG-29 fleet – which comprised just nine single-seat MiG-29AS and two dual-seat MiG-29UBS – on August 31, 2022, with the type being replaced by the Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70/72 Fighting Falcon from 2024. This transfer is expected to include ten theoretically airworthy, modernised MiG-29s and three non-modernised aircraft from long-term storage that would only serve as a source of spare parts.

During the news conference on March 17, Heger also confirmed that Slovakia would send “part of the Kub anti-aircraft system” to Ukraine and that the MiG-29s would only serve to protect Ukrainian skies and not to carry out attacks on Russia. Unlike the Polish MiG-29s, a delivery timeframe for the former Slovak Air Force Fulcrums has not been declared, but it is expected to take place within the coming weeks.