Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) appeared to break ranks with other Democrats on Sunday, telling CNN’s Dana Bash that she has not personally ruled out Ukraine receiving MiG-29 airplanes from Poland, on behalf of the US.
While it appears the US administration had made up its mind about the delivery of the aircraft to Ukraine, Klobuchar, one of many to face off against Biden for the 2020 Democratic nomination, emphasized that Washington has to be strategic about when and how they announce defense maneuvers in support of Ukraine.
“You take one day at a time and make the best defense system decisions, and that can't always be discussed on the air, or you would be giving Vladimir Putin the road map to what NATO wants to do here to help protect Ukraine,” Klobuchar told Bash, host of CNN’s ‘State of the Union.’
Klobuchar, along with Rob Portman (R-OH), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), and Roger Wicker (R-MS) traveled to Poland over the weekend to reaffirm the US commitment to Poland, Ukraine, and other Eastern European allies.
When asked about earlier remarks from the White House national security adviser, Klobuchar noted that providing Ukraine with MiG-29s could be a delivery of more targets for Russian forces.
“I think one of the things that Jake is getting at is, at some point, there's been so much focus on these planes, especially these particular planes, that they themselves could become a target,” Klobuchar argued. “The Russians are well aware of this.”
Sen. Portman, a Republican who also took part in bipartisan trip to Poland, told CNN that the US should begin transferring the aircraft to Ukraine due to the “escalatory” engagements of Russian forces.
“There's discussion, as you know, of them using vacuum bombs and cluster bombs, cluster bombs against civilian targets,” Portman alleged. “This is an illegal, this is a brutal, totally unprovoked attack, and increasingly, they're choosing civilian targets. So, as they escalate, what the Ukrainian people are asking for is just the ability to defend themselves.”
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