On Thursday, August 29th, 2024 social media channels began to circulate snippets from the Wall Street Journal, attributing the loss of Ukraine’s first loss of F-16 to a crash.

A short in length, the article contains no more than two paragraphs, each a sentence long. The first states: ” A Ukrainian F-16 fighter jet was destroyed in a crash on Monday, according to a U.S. official, just weeks after the first of the American-made aircraft arrived in Ukraine. ”

In the next paragraph, the author explains how “[initial] reports indicate the jet wasn’t shot down by enemy fire, although the incident occurred during a massive Russian missile barrage across the country on Monday, the official said. Rather, the crash was likely a result of pilot error.”

The wording is key. Only “initial reports” indicate enemy fire did not down the jet. The author describes the crash as “likely” a result of pilot error but does not name the pilot, the pilot’s error, or how the pilot’s error could have resulted in a crash. None of these important details, which are central to the story, appear in the article.

On August 26th, 2024 the Russians subjected Ukraine to one of the most massive aerial bombardments in the history of the entire war. While damage assessments have been muted, the number of regions Russia struck appears to cover the entire expanse of Ukraine’s landmass from east to west. Among the targets were energy, gas, industrial and other critical aspects of Ukraine. [1]

In addition, the Russians attacked airfields. The Russians, for instance, carried out a missile attack on the Starokonstantinov airfield in the Khmelnitsky region. The F-16s are said to have fled the airfield, flying around the airbase for two to three hours before landing again.

Ukrainians claim at least one of the Ukrainian F-16 pilots trained in Denmark died during the incident, which happened over night from August 26th, to August 27th. While the exact details of the strike remain unclear, there can be no doubt that Ukraine lost its first F-16 as a direct result of Russia’s August 26th strike.

Ihor Polishchuk, the head of Lutsk’s City Council, confirmed that Ukrainian pilot Oleksiy Mes died during the strike. Ukraine’s high command ordered the F-16s to deploy early that morning to help with the interception of Russia’s massive missile on August 26th, which saw more than 200 projectiles fired at half of Ukraine’s regions. 

Ukraine’s air forces claimed to have downed a record number of projectiles, from drones to missiles, in one of its bulletins. In large part, the F-16s played a vital role in Ukraine’s protection, destroying many of Russia’s incoming projectiles. In a bulletin posted on the next day, Ukraine’s air forces claimed to have downed no fewer than ninety nine Shahed-136/131 drones.

[1] – [“Масована атака 26 серпня та її продовження 27-го: куди били росіяни,” 2024-08-28]