Month: March 2023

Poland’s President Andrzej Duda said Thursday that his country plans to give Ukraine around a dozen MiG-29 fighter jets — making Poland the first NATO member to fulfill the Ukrainian government’s urgent requests for warplanes. President Duda said Poland would hand over four of the Soviet-made warplanes “within the next few days” and that the rest needed servicing and would be supplied later (the Polish word he used to describe their number can mean between 11-19).

Duda said of the aircrafts: “They are in the last years of their functioning but they are in good working condition,” adding that Poland’s air force would replace the planes it gives to Ukraine with South Korea-made FA-50 fighters and American-made F-35s.  He did not say whether other countries would be making the same move, although Slovakia has claimed it would send its disused MiGs to Ukraine. Polish government spokesman Piotr Mueller said some other countries (who he did not name) with MiGs also had pledged them to Kyiv.

NATO allies have expressed hesitancy to share fighter jets, despite pleas from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Western supporters.  Ukraine had several dozen MiG-29s before Russia’s invasion that it inherited in the collapse of the Soviet Union, but it’s unclear how many of them remain in service after more than a year of fighting.Duda made the announcement during a joint news conference in Warsaw with the visiting Czech president, Petr Pavel.

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On Thursday, eleven of the biggest banks in the U.S. announced a $30 billion rescue package for California-based First Republic Bank, in an effort to prevent them from becoming the third bank to fail in less than a week. First Republic serves a similar clientele as Silicon Valley Bank, which failed Friday after depositors withdrew about $40 billion. First Republic — which had deposits totaling $176.4 billion as of Dec. 31 — was facing a similar crisis.

JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo have agreed to each put $5 billion in uninsured deposits into First Republic. Meanwhile Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs would deposit $2.5 billion each into the bank. The remaining $5 billion would consist of $1 billion contributions from BNY Mellon, State Street, PNC Bank, Truist and US Bank. The group of 11 banks confirmed in a statement that other unnamed banks had seen large amounts of withdrawals of uninsured deposits, which are those that exceed the $250,000 level insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. The banks said in their statement: “The actions of America’s largest banks reflect their confidence in the country’s banking system.”  U.S. banking regulators also issued a statement in support of the bank rescue package. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, Acting Comptroller of the Currency Michael Hsu, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and FDIC Chairman Martin Gruenberg said: “This show of support by a group of large banks is most welcome, and demonstrates the resilience of the banking system.” 

On Monday, First Republic’s shares dropped more than 60% even after the bank said it had secured additional funding from JPMorgan and the Federal Reserve. The bank’s shares were down as much as 36% on Thursday, but rallied after reports the rescue package was in the works and closed up nearly 9%.  The collapse last week of Silicon Valley Bank was the second biggest bank failure in U.S. history after the demise of Washington Mutual in 2008. New York-based Signature Bank was shuttered two days.

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