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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 stated.
Ukraine’s air drive stated individually that one among 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 among its US-made F-16s in Ukraine since their arrival from Nato nations was introduced by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy earlier this month.
Zelenskyy stated on Tuesday that Ukraine had used its newly delivered F-16s for the primary time this week to intercept Russian missiles and drones.
One individual briefed on the F-16 crash stated it appeared the plane was not downed by enemy hearth.
Mes’s dying 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 practice Ukrainian pilots to fly them.
Ukraine’s F-16s had been used alongside anti-aircraft missile models on Monday to “repulse” a missile assault by Russia, the Ukrainian common workers of the military stated in a press release on Thursday.
The F-16s had been approaching a goal when “contact with one of many plane was misplaced”, the assertion added. “Because it turned out later, the aircraft crashed, the pilot died.”
A particular fee has been opened to analyze the doable causes of the F-16 crash. These vary from pilot and mechanical error to pleasant hearth, in accordance with the individual with information 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 had 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 navy spokesperson declined to supply details about the pilot killed within the F-16 crash.
However the air drive stated in a separate assertion on Thursday that Mes had been killed on Monday whereas repelling the massive Russian aerial barrage.
Mes, whose name signal was “Moonfish”, “fought heroically in his final battle”, the air drive stated, including he had destroyed three cruise missiles and a suicide drone through 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 12 months accredited the switch of F-16s to Ukraine from Nato international locations together with Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway, and 80 plane have to this point 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 stated as many as 10 fighter jets and a minimum of six had been delivered out of the promised 80. Zelenskyy stated the jets’ arrival marked “a brand new chapter” for his nation’s air drive, which is outgunned and outmanned by Russia’s.
Officers and analysts have stated the jets should not anticipated to be game-changers within the struggle.
However alongside western-provided air defence programs, together with Patriot surface-to-air missiles, the F-16s are possible to assist Ukraine shield its skies from Russian assaults, present air cowl for troops close to the frontline and strike floor targets.
