In what Ukraine called Russia’s largest aerial assault since the start of the war, Moscow fired 537 aerial weapons overnight, including 477 drones and decoys and 60 missiles, according to Ukraine’s air force. Among these intense attacks, a Ukrainian F-16 fighter jet was shot down, killing its pilot Lt-Col Maksym Ustimenko, born in 1993. This marks the third loss of an F-16 fighter jet for Ukraine during the ongoing conflict.
Reports say Ustimenko was engaging Russian aerial targets when his West-supplied supersonic jet was struck. The Ukrainian Air Force stated, “The pilot used all of his onboard weapons and shot down seven air targets. While downing the last one, his aircraft was hit, and it started losing altitude.” The F-16 fighter jet, one of the most popular combat aircraft globally with over 5,000 units produced, was recently inducted into Ukrainian defence with Western assistance. Meanwhile, NATO scrambled its jets in response to rising tensions and Russia’s intensifying assault across multiple Ukrainian cities.
