Ukraine Lost Its First F-16: Alternative Truth, Bleak Lessons for Kyiv

The incident with the crash of a Ukrainian F-16 fighter jet became a high-profile media story, which instantly drew the attention of international community, sparking lots of theories and assumptions.

This was the first case of losing an F-16 supplied to Ukraine by Western countries. The situation is still unclear despite the fact that a week has passed since the incident. Meanwhile, contradictory statements by the parties suggest a blatant attempt to disguise the real cause of what has happened.

One of the options voiced by representatives of the Ukrainian Armed Forces (AFU) was pilot error. According to Ukrainian sources, the jet crashed during a massive attack by Russian troops on 26 August. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that the matter concerned pilot Oleksiy “Moonfish” Mes who died in the crash. This is the official story which is being circulated in most of the pro-government Ukrainian media.

Another version contradicting Kyiv's statement was presented by Ukrainian MP Mariana Bezuhla. According to her, the F-16 was shot down by a Patriot surface-to-air missile system due to disorganisation among Ukrainian units.

“According to my information, the F-16 of Ukrainian pilot Oleksiy ‘Moonfish’ Mes was shot down by a Patriot surface-to-air missile system due to discoordination between units. Reports noted that he ‘failed to manage control’,” Bezuhla wrote.

The MP acknowledged that such “episodes” of firing on one's own forces were possible during military operations. However, Bezuhla complained that the practice of lying in the AFU command, as well as in other higher military headquarters, led to the degradation of the military decision-making management system. She noted that this applied to the Pokrovsk area. The statement sparked a wave of discussions immediately, as it pointed to internal coordination problems within the AFU and discredited Ukraine's military and political leadership both in the eyes of its own population and Western partners.

Ukraine's Air Force Commander Mykola Oleshchuk even rushed to accuse Bezuhla of defaming the country's top military officials, adding that Mariana had allegedly dealt a blow to US arms manufacturers, Ukraine's main allies.

“Mariana, the time will come, and you will ask for forgiveness in front of the entire army for what you have done, hopefully in court,” he wrote in his Telegram channel.

Remarkably, Bezuhla's opinion on the culture of lies was actually supported by the well-known German journalist Julian Röpcke, who noted that a kind of "alternative reality" was emerging around the F-16 incident. The analyst did not comment on the statement of the Ukrainian officials, but accused the Western media of deliberate distortion of information and confirmed the downing of the aircraft by the Patriot missile.

The Wall Street Journal offered another version of the incident: the plane could have been shot down with a Russian missile. According to the Journal, the missile exploded near the F-16, and the blast wave could have damaged the aircraft or forced the pilot to manoeuvre at a too low altitude, which led to the crash. Curiously, a statement by Ilya Potanin, deputy executive director of the Russian company FORES, who announced a reward of 15 million roubles for the "first downed" F-16, surfaced online after the crash.

Another significant fact was that the US Defence Ministry refused to comment on the incident. Obviously, the Pentagon is fully capable of obtaining unbiased information about what happened as Western specialists are involved in the maintenance of the US equipment handed over to Ukraine and are also in close communication regarding its operation with representatives of the military and political leadership in Kyiv.

All this prompts only one conclusion: the actual truth, whether it is pilot error, friendly fire, or a Russian missile, is inconvenient and distressing for both the Ukrainian leadership and their US donors. Despite the fact that the investigation into the crash is ongoing, the fact is that the US is losing expensive equipment and undermining the reputation of its armaments in the eyes of the global community, negatively affecting sales of the aircraft. Meanwhile, Ukraine, which relied on American fighter jets as a weapon capable of changing the course of the war, is demonstrating its ineffectiveness in real combat conditions.

Presumably, the Ukrainian armed forces' Western partners will now seriously consider the expediency of providing Ukraine with additional F-16s, as Zelensky asks for so much. Besides, other items of Western weaponry may also be subject to review, as it is much easier to deny Kyiv the opportunity to drop a couple or three Abrams into another massacre than to receive a painful blow to its own military-industrial complex.