Poles are believed to have 28 Soviet-era fighters which they hope the US will replace with newer American planes
“We assess Putin feels aggrieved the west does not give him proper deference and perceives this as a war he cannot afford to lose,” the US director of national intelligence, Avril Haines, told the House intelligence committee.“I think that is the question that we’re all asking ourselves, and what can we possibly do to get humanitarian relief to those in need, and to force the Russians to abide by some sort of ceasefire and respect for humanitarian corridors,” he said.
The CIA director, William Burns, predicted “an ugly next few weeks” in Ukraine, in which the Russian leader would escalate the war “with scant regard for civilian casualties”.Haines said US officials believe Putin “is unlikely to be deterred … and instead may escalate – essentially doubling down to achieve Ukrainian disarmament and neutrality to prevent it from further integrating with the US and Nato if it doesn’t reach some diplomatic negotiation”.
“I don’t want to focus too much on one particular system. Ukraine has a lot of needs,” Carpenter said. “Certainly combat aircraft could help but there’s a lot of other systems that could be useful in terms of degrading Russian air power and preventing the vast bulk of the civilian casualties, which are resulting from long-range fires.”