Unlock the US Election Countdown publication totally free
The tales that matter on cash and politics within the race for the White Home
A Ukrainian F-16 fighter jet crashed on Monday throughout a mission to shoot down Russian missiles and drones in one of many largest aerial assaults mounted by Moscow since its full-scale invasion, Kyiv mentioned.
Ukraine’s air power mentioned individually that one in every of its prime fighter pilots, lieutenant colonel Oleksiy Mes, had been killed in fight throughout the identical Russian assault.
Kyiv confirmed the primary lack of one in every of its US-made F-16s in Ukraine since their arrival from Nato nations was introduced by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy earlier this month.
Zelenskyy mentioned on Tuesday that Ukraine had used its newly delivered F-16s for the primary time this week to intercept Russian missiles and drones.
One particular person briefed on the F-16 crash mentioned it appeared the plane was not downed by enemy hearth.
Mes’s loss of life and the lack of the F-16 mark a major setback for Kyiv, which spent two years pleading with western companions to ship a fleet of the US-made fighter jets to assist it counter Russian assaults and prepare Ukrainian pilots to fly them.
Ukraine’s F-16s have been used alongside anti-aircraft missile models on Monday to “repulse” a missile assault by Russia, the Ukrainian basic employees of the military mentioned in an announcement on Thursday.
The F-16s have been approaching a goal when “contact with one of many plane was misplaced”, the assertion added. “Because it turned out later, the airplane crashed, the pilot died.”
A particular fee has been opened to research the attainable causes of the F-16 crash. These vary from pilot and mechanical error to pleasant hearth, in line with the particular person with data of the incident.
Russia’s missile and drone assaults on Monday and Tuesday targeted on Ukrainian vitality infrastructure in 15 areas, and constituted two of Moscow’s largest aerial bombardments because the full-scale invasion.
Dozens of Russian projectiles have been shot down however a number of of the greater than 200 on Monday and 90 on Tuesday struck their targets, inflicting rolling blackouts throughout the nation and exacerbating Kyiv’s energy shortages.
A Ukrainian army spokesperson declined to supply details about the pilot killed within the F-16 crash.
However the air power mentioned in a separate assertion on Thursday that Mes had been killed on Monday whereas repelling the large Russian aerial barrage.
Mes, whose name signal was “Moonfish”, “fought heroically in his final battle”, the air power mentioned, including he had destroyed three cruise missiles and a suicide drone in the course of the operation.
Mes was a part of the primary group of Ukrainian pilots to coach in F-16s, and he additionally performed a key function in lobbying for the fighter jets on a go to to the US in 2022.
President Joe Biden final yr accepted the switch of F-16s to Ukraine from Nato international locations together with Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway, and 80 plane have to date been pledged.
When Zelenskyy this month introduced the arrival of the primary F-16s in Ukraine, he didn’t specify what number of had been delivered.
A Ukrainian official mentioned as many as 10 fighter jets and a minimum of six had been delivered out of the promised 80. Zelenskyy mentioned the jets’ arrival marked “a brand new chapter” for his nation’s air power, which is outgunned and outmanned by Russia’s.
Officers and analysts have mentioned the jets are usually not anticipated to be game-changers within the warfare.
However alongside western-provided air defence programs, together with Patriot surface-to-air missiles, the F-16s are possible to assist Ukraine defend its skies from Russian assaults, present air cowl for troops close to the frontline and strike floor targets.
