Ukrainian lawmaker Mariana Bezuglaya has accused the military of trying to downplay the loss of a Western-supplied F-16 fighter jet, saying it may have been destroyed by friendly fire.
Kiev has confirmed the loss of an F-16 along with its pilot, without disclosing the cause.
“According to my information, the F-16 piloted by Aleksey ‘Moonfish’ Mes was hit by a Patriot anti-aircraft missile system due to discoordination between units,” Bezuglaya wrote on Telegram, noting that all official reports thus far insist he merely “lost control.”
“War is war, such episodes are possible. But a culture of lies… leads to a management system for military decisions that does not improve based on truthful, consistently collected analytics, but worsens and even collapses, as seen in the Pokrovsk direction,” she added, referring to Russia's recent advance toward the Donbass city of Pokrovsk.
According to Ukraine’s General Staff, the fighter jet incident occurred when F-16s were deployed “together with units of the anti-aircraft missile forces” to repel a coordinated Russian strike earlier this week. At some point, “communication with one of the aircraft was lost” before it was confirmed that it “crashed.”
The Defense Ministry in Kiev has set up a special commission to investigate the incident.
A source within the Ukrainian Air Force told Voice of America that potential causes under examination include pilot error, technical malfunction, and “friendly fire” from Ukrainian air defenses. Another source told CNN that the Ukrainian Defense Forces do not believe pilot error was the cause.
On Monday, Russia conducted a “massive high-precision attack” using long-range air- and sea-based weapons and drones, targeting energy facilities crucial to Ukraine’s defense industrial complex, as well as several airfields storing Western-supplied munitions, according to the Defense Ministry.
The Ukrainian Air Force claimed that fallen pilot Aleksey Mes, with the callsign ‘Moonfish’, who was one of the few trained in the West to fly F-16s, managed to shoot down “three cruise missiles and one strike UAV.” The Air Force has also remained silent on the cause of the incident.
When asked if there was “any chance that this F-16 was brought down by friendly fire from one of the Ukrainian Patriot missiles,” Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh responded, “That would really be something for the Ukrainians to address.”
“The United States has not been asked to participate in any investigation into this incident,” Singh added. “So, in terms of whether this pilot was killed as a result of friendly fire, I just can’t speak to that.”
Bezuglaya is a member of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Servant of the People party and serves as the deputy chair of the parliamentary subcommittee on national security. Her repeated criticism of senior military officials has earned her a place on the notorious Ukrainian website Mirotvorets, often referred to as a “kill list.”