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President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has dismissed the commander of Ukraine’s air force, five days after the crash of a US-made F-16 jetliner that killed one of Kiev’s top fighter pilots.
a Laws and Regulations A statement was posted on the presidential website on Friday night announcing the firing of Lt. Gen. Mykola Oreshchuk. President Zelenskyy did not give reasons for his firing but said in a video statement posted to Telegram that “it was necessary at the command level.” [to] “Empowering and protecting our people, protecting our personnel, protecting all our Soldiers.”
Lt. Gen. Anatoly Krivonozhko has been appointed acting commander in his place, the General Staff of the Armed Forces said in a statement.
Oreshuk’s dismissal marks the third senior military shake-up in less than a year after Zelenskiy replaced the defense minister in September, the army commander in February and the director of the foreign intelligence service and secretary of the National Security and Defence Council in March.
Ukraine’s General Staff said Thursday that a Ukrainian F-16 fighter jet crashed on Monday during a mission to shoot down Russian missiles and drones, in one of the largest air raids since Moscow’s full-scale invasion. The Ukrainian Air Force separately announced that one of its top fighter pilots, Lt. Col. Oleksiy Mess, was killed during the same Russian attack.
On Friday, a Ukrainian official familiar with the incident confirmed to the Financial Times that Metz died while piloting the F-16. Officials said an investigation was ongoing to determine the cause of the crash. They said the plane was not shot down by enemy fire and that they were looking into other possible causes, ranging from pilot or mechanical error to friendly fire.
Hours before Oreshuk’s dismissal, Marianna Bezukhra, a member of the Ukrainian parliament’s defense and intelligence committee, accused the air force commander of misconduct and a cover-up of what she called a “friendly fire” incident.
Citing his access to classified information as a member of parliament but without publicly presenting evidence, Bezura claimed the F-16 was shot down on Monday by a U.S.-made Patriot air defense system that was being deployed to intercept Russian missiles and drones aimed at Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
“This is at least the third time that our plane with a pilot on board has been shot down by our own air defense forces,” Bezura claimed. “The two previous incidents, which did not involve an F-16, were officially blamed on Russia.”
Oreshuk responded in a fiery Telegram post hours later, accusing her of stoking “Russian propaganda” and saying he was hiding nothing. The U.S. was helping Kiev investigate the F-16 crash, he added.
The crash marked Ukraine’s first loss of a U.S.-made F-16 fighter jet since President Zelenskiy announced the arrival of the planes from NATO countries earlier this month.
Metz was one of the first Ukrainian pilots to train on the F-16 fighter jet and helped lobby for the plane during a visit to the US in 2022.
