Poland urged to send Soviet-era jets to Volodymyr Zelensky.

The United States is working on an arms deal that could allow Poland to supply Ukraine with ageing Soviet-era combat jets from its own fleet, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said yesterday.

Under the proposal, Poland would receive US-made F-16 planes in return for giving Ukraine some of its Soviet-made MiG-29s, familiar to Ukrainian pilots, from the fleet it inherited after the fall of the Soviet Union.

“We are looking actively now at the question of airplanes that Poland may provide to Ukraine and looking at how we might be able to backfill should Poland choose to supply those planes,” Blinken told reporters during a visit to Chisinau, Moldova, yesterday. He said he was uncertain of the timescale “but I can just tell you we are looking at it very, very actively”.

Efforts to encourage Poland and potentially other former Soviet bloc nations to transfer their Russian-made jets to Ukraine followed a plea from President Zelensky, the Ukrainian leader, to 200 members of Congress in Washington on Saturday.

Zelensky said via video that he still hoped the US would impose a no-fly zone over his country — a step that would bring America and its allies into direct conflict with Russia and potentially create a nuclear stand-off.

 “If you can’t do that, at least get me planes,” he told them.

After his speech, two US senators said in a letter to Blinken and Lloyd Austin, the US secretary of defence, that similar negotiations were under way with Bulgaria and Slovakia.

“We are aware of discussions between the United States, Poland, Bulgaria, and Slovakia to transfer a portion of their inventory of MiG and Sukhoi aircraft to Ukraine,” said Rob Portman, a Republican, of Ohio, and Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat, for New Hampshire. Despite flying older and fewer aircraft than the Russian fleet, the Ukrainians continue to contest the airspace over Ukraine,” they wrote. “However, the costs of their bravery have been high and the size of their aircraft fleet has diminished.”

They urged the administration to work quickly with American allies in eastern Europe, which were busy “divesting Soviet-era aircraft” and replacing them with newer US-made combat jets. The Soviet-era planes “include platforms that the Ukrainian air force has experience flying and maintaining”.

It remained unclear, though, how the jets might be brought into Ukraine. President Duda of Poland said that sending jets to Ukraine could draw his country, which is a Nato member, into the war.

Mateusz Morawiecki, the prime minister, said on Twitter yesterday that “Poland won’t send its fighter jets to Ukraine as well as allow [it] to use its airports”.

However, Morawiecki’s government was willing to consider a proposal from Washington, according to The Wall Street Journal, which cited two Polish officials.