Britain ready to fill Warsaw’s air defence gaps after MiG-29 delivery to Ukraine – newspaper

BERLIN (Reuters) – Britain is ready to help Poland fill its air defence gaps caused by Warsaw sending some of its MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine but Poland has not yet made such requests, British Armed Forces Minister James Heappey was quoted as saying on Monday.

Poland last week said it would send Ukraine four MiG-29 fighter jets in coming days, making it the first of Kyiv’s allies to provide such aircraft and possibly creating a need to ramp up Poland’s air defence equipment.

Britain would be able to help fill such gaps, as it previously did when Poland sent T-72 main battle tanks to Ukraine, providing Warsaw with Challenger 2 tanks, Heappey told German newspaper Welt.

“We will look very positively at a Polish request to fill in the gaps that have arisen,” Heappey said.

(Reporting by Riham Alkousaa; Editing by Peter Graff)