Gloating Russia boasts of killing ‘first of Ukraine’s newly-trained Ukrainian F-16
Russia has boasted about killing the first Ukrainian F-16 trained pilot in an airbase attack.
The loss of Lt-Col Oleksii Mes, 31, was confirmed in a social media obituary by the mayor of Lutsk.
He died ‘while performing a combat mission to protect the territorial integrity and independence of Ukraine’, according to Ihor Polishchuk.
It comes after Russia pounded Ukraine with 200 drones and missiles in ‘one of the biggest bombardments of the war’ earlier this week.
The mayor later deleted the post, possibly due to sensitivity over the F-16 programme, but Ukrainian officials have not denied the death.
The loss of Lt-Col Oleksii Mes (right), 31, was confirmed in a social media obituary by the mayor of Lutsk
Mes, one of the first F-16 pilots, has reportedly been killed in a mass Russian combined missile and drone attack on 26 August
Mes pictured preparing for an incentive flight in an F-15D Eagle with the 144th Fighter Wing as part of the State Partnership Program in 2019
Pilots were training in the West for two years to fly the F-16 multi-role fighters which began arriving in Ukraine in recent weeks.
Russia has offered £124,000 cash rewards to its armed forces for downing the first elite F-16 Western aircraft.
Mes appears to be the first F-16 pilot to die in the war but the circumstances remain unclear, and other Ukrainian officials have not commented.
It is unknown if there was any damage to his plane, and if so it was on the ground rather than flying, according to the emerging details.
Earlier footage showed Mes abroad in NATO state Denmark when he trained on the F-16s, having previously been a MiG-29 pilot.
The mayor described him as deputy commander of a special operations support group, and said: ‘Our sincere condolences to the family and friends. Eternal memory, honour and respect to the Heroes!’
Russian sources have claimed he perished in an attack on a Ukrainian air base on 26 August.
US Air National Guard Lt-Col and former Congressman Adam Kinzinger, centre, with Ukrainian Lt-Col Oleksii Mes, 31, right
Details of the Russian combined missile and drone attack pictured
Ukrainian Lt-Col Oleksii Mes, 31, left, pictured speaking on US news channel CNN
On this day, the Russian defence ministry claimed to have hit airfields in the Kyiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions, but there were also reports of strikes on other regions.
The Kremlin’s official newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta reported that ‘one of the first Ukrainian F-16 pilots, Lt-Col of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksii Mes, has died…..
‘This occurred on 26 August, when Russian military forces carried out a series of strikes on Ukrainian Armed Forces infrastructure targets in western Ukraine.
‘The exact airfield where the pilot was killed is not specified.’
Other reports said it was not known whether a strike came as he was in a command post or at the controls of his plane.