On Thursday’s “MSNBC Live,” State Department Spokesperson Ned Price defended the U.S. opposing Poland’s plan to transfer MiGs to Ukraine by arguing that Ukraine doesn’t really need the planes to fight Russia because “the threat Ukraine faces is better designed for surface-to-air systems.”
Price said, “When it comes to the planes, though, the challenge is that the threat Ukraine faces is better designed for surface-to-air systems. These are systems that we have provided to Ukraine in the past, and the Department of Defense is looking into options to provide additional such systems so their Ukrainian partners can be more effective in taking on the precise threats that we’re seeing wreak such havoc, wreak such destruction across Ukraine right now.”
He added that the Department of Defense “has concluded that what Ukraine needs to take on the Russian assets that are causing such destruction, the missiles, the rockets, the artillery are not planes, but these…surface-to-air systems, and these are systems that we have provided Ukraine and we are looking at options to provide even more.”
Price also expressed concern that the transfer of the jets could escalate the situation by dragging more countries into the conflict.
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