Ukrainians from the general public to top officials have urged the US and its allies to provide fighter jets so the air force can fight off attackers.
The US has provided spare parts that have allowed Ukraine to put more jets into service, but so far no one has delivered jets to Kyiv. A group of Ukrainian volunteers are starting a campaign on the internet to raise money for the jets.
It is not the first effort to support the military of Ukraine. Initiatives by private individuals and governments have procured smaller items for military use, like drones and satellite phones, but Buy Me a Fighter Jet is an effort to purchase the big-ticket military hardware that Ukraine's Western partners have been reluctant to provide.
The video that called on celebrities and philanthropists to buy fighter jets for Ukrainian forces appeared online in April. The campaign website had a menu-like list of countries and military aircraft.
Taras Meselko, the campaign's spokesman, told Insider that Buy Me a Fighter Jet has targeted wealthy benefactors and seeks to be cost effective.
He said that you can buy two or three of the jets for $7 or $8 million.
Meselko said that Ukrainian pilots are trained to fly the Soviet-era model of the MiG-29. In March, Poland offered to give its fighter jets to the US so the US could give them to Ukraine, but the US turned it down.
Buy Me a Fighter Jet is far from its financial goals despite the interest. According to Maselko, the campaign has not targeted billionaires like Musk or Bezos, but Ukrainians who have raised $221,600.
Wealthy individuals with Ukrainian ties have expressed interest. According to the Kyiv Post, the wife of a British-Pakistani multimillionaire said her husband and other philanthropists had collected money to purchase two aircraft.
In a later interview, Mohammad Zahoor did not respond to multiple requests for comment on his role in a potential purchase.
Maselko said in a message that the campaign was not buying jets but was pushing Pakistan to provide fighter jets to Ukraine.
Maselko said that they are helping Ukrainian refugees in Europe, but they are not involved in buying fighter jets.
The General Staff of the Ukrainian Air Force knows nothing about this, according to a laughing emoji from Yuriy Ignat.
The Ukrainian military will get fighter jets and other equipment from the funds raised by Buy Me a Fighter Jet. The campaign signed an agreement with Ukroboronprom to handle purchases, according to Maselko.
Maselko said that the agreement gave the campaign legitimacy and backed up its charitable intentions. It is not a campaign of just publicity.
Maselko told Insider that Ukroboronprom would handle the maintenance of the fighter jets.
The crucial thing is that you have to sign all the documents to get it to the Ukrainian Air Force. We only need to raise this money to buy the fighter jets.
When asked to confirm the deal, Ukroboronprom and its chief executive did not reply.
It is not clear where the jets would come from if the campaign raises enough money.
Private citizens in the US own some MiG-29s, which can be flyable and equipped for combat. The US government has a small fleet of MiG-29s and Su-27s that it uses for testing and training US aircraft, but transferring those to Ukraine could raise unwanted questions about what the US has been doing with them. It would be difficult for the US to replace those jets.
Keeping the jets flying is a challenge. The Soviet-era aircraft have diminishing spare parts and expertise. NATO militaries are replacing them with US- and European-designed aircraft.
Despite the US and other countries completing arms transfers to Ukraine with alacrity in recent months, there are still plenty of bureaucratic hurdles involved in weapons transfers. A Ukrainian pilot who asked Insider not to use his name for security reasons said that reducing the red tape will be important to getting more weapons to Ukraine.
While "Buy Me a Fighter Jet" and others have focused on aircraft, those don't top the pilot's list of urgent needs.
In order to get our territories back and have that other line of air defense, Jets will be necessary, but buying and transferring them and training crews and building infrastructure for them is what the pilot said.
The pilot said that they learned how to protect themselves from Russian airstrikes.
The pilot said that since the start of the war, Russia has stopped attacking Ukrainian aircraft and air assets.
He said that surface-to-air missiles were the number one priority to get from the Western countries.
The pilot said that surface-to-air missiles have been proven to be more effective against cruise missiles.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
