we are looking actively now at the question of aeroplanes that poland may provide to ukraine. and looking at how we might be able to backfill, should poland decide to supply those planes. what ukraine says it really wants is a no fly zone enforced by nato in an attempt to slow the russian onslaught on its cities but nato has said no, fearing it would trigger a wider european war. most of the the destruction is coming from artillery it s not coming from russian aircraft. and then if we were to police a no fly zone, it would mean we would probably have to take out russian defence systems she ends and then we would have nato aircraft in the air alongside russian aircraft, and then the potential of shooting them down and then that leads to an escalation. and amid the fighting,
president zelensky addressed the us senate he actually requested russian made aircraft to assist the military because he said they know how to fly them, how to use them. our diplomatic correspondent has 0ur diplomatic correspondent has this report. what ukraine wants is more air cover, more planes like these, keeping the skys free from russian attacks. and so now there is a plan for the west to give more jets to ukraine for its own pilots to fly. america s top diplomat was visiting moldova today where he confirmed poland might give some of its warplanes to ukraine and get some american fighterjets in return. we are looking actively now at the question of aeroplanes that poland may provide to ukraine. and looking at how we might be able to backfill, should poland decide to supply those planes. what ukraine says it really wants is a no fly zone enforced by nato
they re desperate. they want help. and the larger questions they re not really focused on. they want as much help as is humanly possible. and the emphasis, no-fly zone, the fighter jets that you ve talked about that poland could potentially get them and tougher sanctions. they are pushing us hard to give them everything we possibly can. what do you think about this potential deal that s in the works, rather, at least the discussion is there, allowing poland to put forward their soviet era mig jets and the u.s. backfill what they lose with american planes. how likely is this to happen? what are the hiccoughs there? i support it. it s a decent step. the biggest hiccough is getting primarily the polish government. there has been talk about slovakia and i think romania
their piloting. ukrainian foreign minister appealed publicly yesterday to allow poland to supply these mig fighter jets. these are the type the ukrainian military can fly. blinken says the u.s. is working on getting poland other jets give given concerns over this russian invasion. we re looking actively at the question of airplanes that poland may provide to ukraine and looking at how we might be able to backfill. can t speak to a timeline, but we re looking at it very, very actively. reporter: the secretary of state has just arrived here, he ll travel to all three baltic states. that also includes latvia and estonia. these countries say they re concerned about a potential russian inevasion even though they re nato countries covered under the treaty that says an attack an one nato sun country is an attack on all of them. blinken began the day in
should they want to provide aircraft to the ukraine air force, that s a sovereign decision they can make. the united states is not going to stand in the way of that. there was discussion about if a nation such as poland were to do this, would there be a capacity for the united states to backfill those aircraft with american-made aircraft. what i can tell you is i can only speak for the department of defense. we are part of a discussion to examine that possibility. no decisions have been made, certainly none we re aware of by poland as you pointed out in your quotes there. we are having a discussion about should a nation like poland want to do this and should there be a desire or need for some sort of backfill of assets, what would that look like, how would we do that, how many, from where, those are the kinds of things we re talking about. reporter: one other question.