Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on Friday the dismissal of Air Force Commander Mykola Oleshchuk, a day after news of the crash of a US-designed F-16 jet delivered to kyiv.
“I have decided to replace the commander of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine,” Zelensky said on Telegram, after a decree to this effect was published on the presidential website.
Although Mr Zelensky did not explain the reasons for this decision, it comes the day after the announcement of the crash of an F-16 plane, a precious piece of military equipment recently delivered by the West and which kyiv had been relentlessly demanding for two years.
The Ukrainian military said the crash, which killed U.S.-trained pilot Oleksiy Mes, occurred during a massive Russian missile and drone attack on Monday.
Little information has been provided about this episode by the Ukrainian authorities.
According to Ukrainian MP Mariana Bezouhla, a member of the parliament’s defence committee, the F-16 was mistakenly shot down by a Patriot anti-aircraft system “due to poor coordination between units.”
In a message on Telegram on Thursday, she criticized “the culture of lies” within the Ukrainian military command and the fact that “none of the generals have been punished” and that “General Oleshchuk remains in office.”
On Friday, she added that this was “at least the third time” that a Ukrainian plane had been mistakenly shot down by Ukrainian air defenses. “The two previous incidents, which did not involve F-16s, were officially blamed on the Russians,” she charged.
Mykola Oleshchuk had promised on Facebook on Friday before his dismissal to “discover the causes of the air disaster” with the F-16, assuring that he “hide nothing”.
He accused Mariana Bezouhla of wanting to “discredit senior military officials” and the United States, designers of the F-16s and Patriot systems supplied to kyiv.
Ukraine announced in early August that it had received its first F-16s.