Videos claiming that the pilot – dubbed “the Ghost from Kyiv” – single-handedly shot down several Russian fighter jets, began circulating on the first day of the Russian invasion.
The Ukrainian folk hero was alleged to have shot down as many as 40 Russian planes, which was seen as a huge achievement because Russia has much larger military muscle and controls large parts of Ukrainian airspace.
It has been speculated for a long time Who is the alleged ghost pilot?.
The movie “The Ghost from Kyiv” has been hailed as a popular hero
Now, however, the Ukrainian Air Force warns in a Facebook message that the “ghost from Kyiv” is just a “super legend” created by people.
“We urge the Ukrainian people not to neglect the basic rules of information,” the statement said, urging people to “check the sources of information before publishing it.”
Not a single pilot
London times On Saturday, they wrote that they received confirmation that the “ghost from Kyiv” is the 29-year-old Major Stepan Tarabalka.
Ukrainian authorities later confirmed the 29-year-old had been killed in a battle on March 13 and was honored as a “Hero of Ukraine” posthumously.
However, they have refuted the claim that Tarabalka is the “stealth of Kyiv”, and he denies that he shot down 40 planes.
They warn against attributing the character of a superhero to a single pilot, describing “The Ghost from Kyiv” as a group portrait of the pilots from the Air Force’s 40th Tactical Aviation Brigade, who “defend the skies over the capital”, not the effort of one man.
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out of context
Several weeks ago, the legend of the “ghost from Kyiv” spread on social media among Ukrainians.
The former president of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, was among those who shared a photo of what is believed to be the pilot. The official Twitter account of the Ukrainian authorities has also been created Video praised “Ghost of Kyiv”..
Factisk.no fact-checked Documenting photos that appeared around the pilot. Poroshenko shared the photo, Which will show who the pilot is, does not stem from the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The photo is from 2019, and that was then Shared on the official Twitter account of the Ukrainian Defense Regarding a pilot trial of a new French helmet system.
A video clip that was supposed to show the ghost pilot shooting down Russian planes was captured from a computer game. According to Faktisk.no, the images that were due to show the pilot have been taken out of context or have been tampered with.
Error: The video shows a fighter plane being shot down by another fighter. But according to gaming website Game Rant, these images come from a gaming simulator. Photo: screenshot
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– important to people
Ukrainian military expert Mikhail Zhirohov says: BBC He believes that the “Ghost from Kyiv” story is part of a propaganda campaign to raise morale among Ukrainians. It is believed that one pilot could hardly have shot down up to 40 planes on his own.
It is believed that this type of propaganda is very important to the Ukrainian people
– Our armed forces are smaller, and many believe that we cannot be equal to them (editor of the Russians. trip.) We need this in wartime, he tells the channel.
Pictures that shook the world
The Ukrainian authorities themselves helped perpetuate the “Ghost of Kyiv” myth, just days after the war.
Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) featured a fighter pilot on the messaging service Telegram, with the caption “Ghost from Kyiv” was an “angel” that crashed 10 Russian planes. But the name of the “angel” was not revealed, and many media outlets were later able to prove that the photo used was old, according to the BBC.
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