Zelenskyy dismisses head of Air Force days after an F-16 crashed

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine dismissed the head of the country’s air force on Friday, days after the crash of an F-16 warplane in what may have been a friendly fire incident.

A Western official who has been briefed on the preliminary investigation in the crash said there were “indications” that friendly fire from a Patriot missile battery might have brought down the jet, though mechanical failure and pilot error have not been ruled out.

The dismissal of the air force commander, Lt. Gen. Mykola Oleschuk, announced by the president in a post on the Telegram social media app, is the second high-profile departure this year. In February, Zelenskyy dismissed Ukraine’s top military leader, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, replacing him with Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi.

Zelenskyy gave no specific reason for the decision, which came one day after the air force had announced the loss of the F-16, but said that it was necessary to strengthen military leadership. “We need to get stronger,” he said. “And we need to take care of people. Take care of the personnel. Take care of all our soldiers.”

The plane crashed Monday while defending against an intense aerial attack by Russian forces, which on Friday hit an apartment block in Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, killing at least seven people and wounding scores more, local authorities said.

The possibility of friendly fire incidents becomes especially acute during mass attacks by missiles and drones, military experts say.

“Keeping track of what’s the good guy and what’s the bad guy particularly when there are missiles flying around at the same time is difficult,” said Mark Cancian, a senior adviser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank based in Washington. “Fratricide is a huge problem.”

Ukraine took delivery of half a dozen F-16s just a few weeks ago, the first of a total of 45 promised by its allies in Europe. The loss of one so soon after their arrival is a significant blow to Ukraine’s effort to integrate the aircraft into its war effort, and to convince NATO allies that it can efficiently handle sophisticated Western weapons.

The pilot of the plane, Lt. Col. Oleksiy Mes, died in the crash. He was one of only about a dozen Ukrainians who had been through an accelerated training program before going into battle, experts said.