kyiv, Ukraine.- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday dismissed the commander of the country’s Air Force, four days after an F-16 fighter jet sent to Ukraine by its Western partners crashed during a Russian airstrike. The pilot was killed.
The order to dismiss Lieutenant General Mykola Oleshchuk was published on the presidential website.
“We need to protect the population. Protect the personnel. Take care of all our soldiers,” Zelenskyy said in a speech minutes after the order was published. He added that Ukraine needs to strengthen the command levels of its military.
Lieutenant General Anatolii Kryvonozhko has been appointed acting commander of the Air Force, the army’s General Staff said.
The dismissal came the same day that Oleshchuk made scathing criticism of a lawmaker who is deputy head of the Ukrainian parliament’s defense committee for claiming that the F-16 was shot down by a Patriot air defense system. Ukraine has received an unspecified number of U.S.-made systems.
Mariana Bezuhla cited unnamed sources in her statement and demanded punishment for those responsible for the error.
Oleshchuk accused Bezuhla of defaming the Air Force and discrediting American weapons manufacturers, and said he expected her to face legal consequences for her remarks.
“The truth will prevail,” Bezuhla wrote in X, shortly after the dismissal order was published.
The Air Force did not directly deny that the F-16 was hit by a Patriot missile.
U.S. experts have joined the Ukrainian investigation into the incident, the Air Force said.
Separately, a Russian attack in the northeastern city of Kharkiv using powerful glider bombs dropped from aircraft killed six people, including a 14-year-old girl at a playground, and wounded 47 others, the region’s governor, Oleh Syniehubov, said.
The bombs hit five different points in the city, which had a population of 1.4 million before the war, the governor said.
One of the bombs hit a 12-story apartment building, sparking a fire and trapping at least one person on one of the upper floors. Emergency crews searching for survivors feared the building might collapse.
Zelenskyy pointed to the Kharkiv attacks as further evidence that his Western partners should back off decisions about what the Ukrainian military can attack with donated weapons.
The attack in Kharkiv “would not have happened if our defence forces had the ability to destroy Russian military aircraft at their bases. We need strong decisions from our partners to put an end to this terror,” Zelenskyy said.
F-16s are one of the weapons that could be used to attack Russian bases beyond the battlefront.
Oleshchuk said on Telegram that a “detailed analysis” was already underway into why the F-16 crashed on Monday as Russia launched a barrage of missiles and drones at Ukraine.
“We need to carefully understand what happened, what the circumstances are and who is responsible,” Oleshchuk wrote in a post shortly after his dismissal.
The crash was the first reported loss of an F-16 in Ukraine, where the planes arrived late last month. At least six of them are believed to have been sent by European countries.
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