Kyiv, Ukraine
CNN
—

A top Ukrainian pilot was killed when a US-made F-16 fighter jet crashed on Monday, a Ukrainian Defence Forces source told CNN.

The Ukrainian Defence Forces do not believe pilot error was behind the incident, the source added.

The pilot, Oleksiy Mes known as “Moonfish,” was killed in the crash while “repelling the biggest ever aerial attack” by Russia against Ukraine, said the source, adding that the pilot was buried on Thursday.

The crash is being investigated and international experts will be invited to participate in the probe, the source added.

The death of the pilot is a major blow for Ukraine. The first F-16s only arrived in the country earlier this month and Moonfish was one of the few pilots trained to fly them.

Kyiv waited a long time to get hold of the F-16s, and the country’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has been asking its Western allies for the fighter jets since the start of the full-scale invasion.

But as with other equipment, Western countries hesitated before finally agreeing to provide F-16s. The Netherlands and Denmark pledged to provide them early summer in 2023, but it took another few weeks for the US to green-light the transfer.

When they arrived earlier this summer, Zelensky said he and his government held “hundreds of meetings and negotiations” to secure the jets.

A group of Ukrainian pilots started their training in the US in the fall. While it normally takes a year to get fully trained up to fly the planes, Moonfish and others had to do it in six months.

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