On Friday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Jose Diaz-Balart Reports,” Rep. Susan Wild (D-PA) expressed concern over the U.S. opposing the transfer of Polish jets to Ukraine and whether “we are ceding the airspace to Putin” and “delaying the inevitable.”
Wild said, “I’m a little bit concerned about the fact that we have not yet authorized the transfer of these old Russian warplanes that are in Poland’s possession. I defer to Gen. Milley and Secretary Austin on that decision. But I will tell you that the bipartisan consensus when we left Poland was that that needed to happen as soon as possible. They may very well be in possession of intel. that I am not aware of that justifies making that decision, and I’m not second-guessing them, I just want to know, eventually, what the reason is.”
She added, “I don’t know why it’s not happening. And again, I defer to the top brass on that, but I hope they have a really good justification for it. The problem is that modern wars are fought in the air. And so, I think it’s wonderful that the United States and all of the NATO allies are sending all kinds of military equipment, ammunition, bulletproof vests, helmets, everything else into Ukraine, including weapons that are being used by civilians at this point. But I’m very, very concerned about whether we are ceding the airspace to Putin. And I just — I’m not comfortable with that at this point. And so, I feel like we need to be doing more, although I understand the concerns about escalation and that kind of thing. But let’s face it, Putin considers everything that we do, including providing humanitarian aid, to be an escalation. So, I’m a little bit worried that we’re just delaying the inevitable.”
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