President Volodymyr Zelensky fired the Ukrainian Air Force Commander Mykola Oleshchuk, Friday, August 30, four days after the loss of one of the 10 American-made F-16 aircraft given to Kyiv and the death of its pilot, public figure Oleksii Mes.

Oleshchuk, 52, had been in office since 2021 and had a background in air defense. He was replaced by Anatolii Kryvonozhko, 59, who has a different background, as a former pilot.

The circumstances surrounding the destruction of the F-16 are still unclear, but it is known that the aircraft had been on a mission to defend Ukrainian airspace at the time of the Russian attack on Monday, August 26 – Russia's biggest attack since the start of the war, in which it launched 127 missiles of various types and 109 Shahed-type attack drones. It is also known that several F-16s were sent to shoot down enemy projectiles.

According to the Ukrainian Air Force, the F-16s destroyed four missiles. The aircraft flown by Mes (whose call sign was "Moonfish") was neither lost due to pilot error nor shot down by Russian fighters, according to the Air Force, which has opened an investigation on which international experts are invited to collaborate.

Without waiting for the conclusions of an investigation that could take several months, Mariana Bezuhla, a Ukrainian MP known for her diatribes against figures who have displeased the president, attacked Commander Oleshchuk head-on on Thursday. Bezuhla, a member of the Parliamentary Committee on National Security, Defense and Intelligence denounced the "silence" about the "old-fashioned generals who are leading us to defeat." According to her, the F-16 had been mistakenly shot down by a Patriot air defense system (supplied by the US) "due to poor coordination between units." According to Bezuhla, this was "at least the third Ukrainian aircraft brought down by friendly fire."

Oleshchuk immediately responded on his Telegram channel, calling her criticism "an instrument used to discredit the military command," promising that "the time will come when you [Bezuhla] will come to court and apologize to the whole army for what you have done." He also, in passing, accused her of discrediting the American manufacturer of the Patriot system.

On Saturday, August 31, the New York Times cited US military sources who stated that the cause of the crash was "probably not friendly fire," thus ruling out the Patriot system.

No one dares to cast doubt on Mes himself or his abilities. Over the past two years, the 30-year-old lieutenant-colonel, one of the few Ukrainian fighter pilots to take to social media, made a name for himself through his tireless activism aimed at convincing Ukraine's allies to supply his country with F-16 fighter jets.

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