kyiv, Ukraine.- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday dismissed the head of the Air Force, a day after kyiv reported that a US-made F-16 fighter had crashed while repelling a Russian bombing raid.
“I decided to replace the commander of the Air Force” in order to “strengthen” Ukraine’s military leadership, Zelensky said in a video posted on Telegram after the decree dismissing commander Mikola Oleshchuk was published.
Ukraine announced Thursday that an F-16 fighter jet, a valuable war material recently delivered by Western powers, had crashed and the pilot was killed. The Ukrainian Armed Forces said the aircraft was participating in a combat mission to repel a massive Russian missile and drone bombardment earlier this week.
The accident is a heavy loss for Ukraine, which began receiving these fighters at the beginning of August, after demanding for months that the Western powers supply it with this material to repel the Russian invasion that began in February 2022.
Ukrainian lawmaker Mariana Bezugla, who sits on a parliamentary committee on defence, security and intelligence, said the F-16 was shot down by Ukrainian air defence systems because of a “coordination” error between units. Before announcing her dismissal, Oleshchuk accused the lawmaker of wanting to discredit military commanders and said a thorough investigation into what happened was underway. The Air Force said Lieutenant General Anatolii Krivonozhko, who heads operations in central Ukraine, will take over the vacant post on an interim basis. This is not the first time Zelensky has dismissed a senior military officer. This year he replaced the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, Valery Zaluzhni, with Oleksander Sirski.
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