Volodymyr Zelenskyy sacks air drive chief after prime pilot killed in F-16 crash

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President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has fired the commander of the Ukrainian air drive 5 days after the crash of a US-made F-16 jet that killed one among Kyiv’s prime fighter pilots.

A decree asserting the dismissal of Lieutenant Normal Mykola Oleschuk was printed on the presidential web site on Friday night. Zelenskyy didn’t present a cause for firing Oleschuk, however in a video assertion posted to Telegram he mentioned it was “needed on the command degree [to] strengthen and shield folks, shield personnel, shield all our troopers”.

Lt Gen Anatoliy Kryvonozhko had been appointed performing commander in his place, the final workers of the armed forces mentioned in a press release.

The removing of Oleschuk marks the third shuffle of a prime navy submit in lower than a yr. Zelenskyy changed his defence minister final September and his commander-in-chief of the armed forces in February. He changed his chief of international intelligence and secretary of the nationwide safety and defence council in March.

Ukraine’s basic workers introduced on Thursday {that a} Ukrainian F-16 fighter had 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. Ukraine’s air drive mentioned individually that one among its prime fighter pilots, Lieutenant Colonel Oleksiy Mes, had been killed in fight throughout the identical Russian assault.

On Friday, Ukrainian officers with information of the incident confirmed to the Monetary Occasions that Mes had been killed whereas piloting the F-16. The officers mentioned an investigation was beneath option to decide the reason for the crash. They mentioned it appeared the plane had not been downed by enemy hearth and so they had been different potential causes starting from pilot and mechanical error to pleasant hearth.

Hours earlier than Oleschuk’s dismissal, Ukrainian MP Mariana Bezuhla, a member of the parliamentary defence and intelligence committee, accused the air drive commander of misconduct and overlaying up what she claimed was an incident of “pleasant hearth”.

The F-16, Bezuhla alleged, citing her entry to delicate info as a lawmaker however with out sharing proof publicly, had been shot down on Monday with a US-made Patriot air defence system that had been deployed to intercept Russian missiles and drones focusing on Ukraine’s vitality infrastructure.

“That is no less than the third time when our aircraft with a pilot was shot down by its personal air defence,” Bezuhla alleged. “Two earlier incidents that didn’t contain the F-16 had been formally blamed on the Russians.”

Oleschuk responded hours later in a fiery submit on Telegram, accusing her of fuelling “Russian propaganda” and saying that he had by no means hidden something. The US was serving to Kyiv examine the F-16 crash, he added.

The crash was the primary lack of one among Ukraine’s US-made F-16s since their arrival from Nato nations was introduced by Zelenskyy earlier this month.

Mes was among the many first group of Ukrainian pilots to coach in F-16s. He had additionally helped foyer for the fighter jets on a go to to the US in 2022.