Ukraine had received 6 F-16 fighter jets. On Monday, during a mass Russian missile and drone attack, 16.7% of them came down. A local administration was first to announce the death of its pilot.
The F-16 trained pilots, not the airplanes, are a resource that is missing most in Ukraine.
There were various theories how the plane was terminated. The Ukrainian Air Force Command made a hero out of its pilot. Stephen Bryen is quoting the Russian source Rybar:
The Ukrainian Air Force Command has released an official obituary for pilot Oleksii Mesia, who was flying an F-16 fighter jet.
According to the text, the fighter he was piloting was hunting Russian cruise missiles and kamikaze drones during the massive missile strike on August 26. It claims he shot down three cruise missiles and one UAV, but was killed himself. This wording suggests that the F-16 either was shot down by Ukraine's own air defenses, which were also engaging the missiles and drones, or crashed into one of the aerial targets, which has happened before.
However parliament member Mariana Bezuglaya, known for her previous criticism of General Zaluzny and other military staff, has claimed that the F-16 was shot down as a result of "friendly fire" (machine translation):
Bezuglaya wrote about this in her Telegram channel.
"According to my information, the F-16 of Ukrainian pilot Oleksiy "Moonfish" Mesya was shot down by a Patriot anti-aircraft missile system due to discoordination between units.
The reports noted that he "failed to manage". The event occurred during one of the most powerful air attacks of the Russians on August 26.
War is war, such episodes are possible. But the culture of lies in the Air Force Command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as in other top military staffs, leads to the fact that the system of managing military decisions does not improve based on truthful, consistently collected analytics, but worsens and even collapses, as it happens in the West. Pokrovsky direction. And none of the generals are punished. General Oleschuk remains in office," Bezuglaya wrote.
Mariana Bezuglaya gets fed the details for such allegations from someone high up in the government or military.
The original assumption was that she was a tool of Andrei Yermak, the man who directs the presidential office and is who is brain behind Zelenski.
However, Strana writes today that someone else is likely handling her (machine translation):
Today, Air Force Commander Mykola Oleshchuk commented on the criticism of MP Maryana Bezuglaya of the AFU command, as well as her dissemination of information about various failures of the Ukrainian military, and said that some people "chose" her "as a tool to discredit the top military leadership ." Oleshchuk also warned that " it will not be possible to hang all the dogs on the army."
What kind of people are these who use Bezuglaya as a tool to "hang all the dogs" on the military, Oleshchuk did not specify.
But in political circles, it has long been widely believed that Bezuglaya is the mouthpiece of the President's Office and voices about the military what Bankovaya [, the seat of the the Ukrainian government,] herself cannot say for various reasons.
…
And when Bezuglaya began to criticize the new commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Alexander Syrsky, many regarded this as a sign: Bankovaya was already dissatisfied with him.
That however turned out to be false. Syrski was recently promoted to become a full 4 star general.
Therefore, Bezuglaya's campaign (and not only her) against the current commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and his associates, unlike the times on the eve of Zaluzhny's dismissal, is more like an attempt by some forces to "shoot down" Syrsky in order to take his place.
In this regard, it is worth recalling that according to one of the versions that we have already written about, Bezuglaya focuses not on Yermak, but on another influential representative of Zelensky's inner circle – the head of the GUR Kirill Budanov.
It was Budanov who was considered as one of the main candidates for the post of Commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the eve of Zaluzhny's resignation. However, in the end, he lost the" casting" to Syrsky, but it is likely that he did not give up his ambitions.
And it cannot be ruled out that Bezuglaya is still helping him to get closer to his cherished goal – to become the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army.
Budanov, the head of the military intelligence service, is the man who did not shy away from directing a terror campaign against prominent Russians like Darya Dugina.
He is ruthless.
His interventions via Mariana Bezuglaya are also somewhat successful:
DD Geopolitics @DD_Geopolitics – 17:09 UTC · Aug 30, 2024
🇺🇦 BREAKING! Zelensky has dismissed the Commander of the Ukrainian Air Force, Oleshchuk.
The corresponding decree was published on the website of the Ukrainian President's Office.
The F-16 saga keeps getting more and more interesting …
Deconflicting the airspace between ground based air-defenses and ones own pilots when under attack is quite difficult and requires very detailed coordination. Ukraine has probably only a few men who were trained in it. It is thus highly likely that a Patriot or some other air defense system took the F-16 down.
It is a huge problem and lying about it makes it worse.