The spirit of Kyiv no longer exists. Perhaps the legendary character of this war was a fighter pilot who, according to the Ukrainian government, shot down dozens of Russian planes, but there is not even reliable information about his existence, let alone his actions.
The newspaper “The Times of London” revealed, on Friday, the identity of the pilot: Major Stepan Tarabalca (29). On March 13 he was shot down while fighting a “massive number of opponents”. The newspaper quoted Ukrainian sources as confirming the identity and death of Tarabalka.
Did you kill more than 40 enemies?
According to Ukraine, Tarabalka shot down more than 40 Russian aircraft. Like almost everything else in the story, the number can’t be verified, but it can be too high.
What is certain is that he was posthumously awarded the highest Ukrainian honor for courage, the Order of the Gold Star, and the title Hero of Ukraine. This is what his family announced to the newspaper.
Supposedly six deaths in the first day
His helmet and goggles – all that can be seen from him when Ukrainian officials were promoting his heroism – are now set to be auctioned off.
Tarabalka became a legend when the Ukrainian government credited the then-unnamed pilot with shooting down six Russian planes on the first day of the war. The spirit of Kyiv was born. Since then there have been numerous articles about him, where the truth ends and the fiction begins is no longer clear.
exposed lies
A video of him allegedly shooting down a plane has been shared tens of thousands of times and viewed millions of times since then as fake. The maneuver attributed to him is from the video game Digital Combat Simulator, according to research by several people.
Another photo released by former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, 56, purportedly showing the spirit of Kyiv, turned out to be a two-year-old photo by the Ukrainian Defense Ministry.
“then not anymore”
Nevertheless, Ukraine, unchecked, continued to do propaganda in its own right. On the one hand to raise the morale of your troops and on the other hand to destabilize the enemy. Recently, the Ukrainian General Staff posted on Twitter another photo of the ace fighter pilot in the cockpit of his MiG-29 with his face covered with the caption: “Hello, occupier, I’m coming to take your soul!”
It is not clear if Tarabalka is really the pilot who is now supposed to become a martyr from a hero. What is certain is that Tarabalka was in fact a Ukrainian pilot who carried out missions during the war. His parents, Nahalia and Yvonne Trabalca, were interviewed shortly after his death – when it was not yet clear he would be the hero pilot – and did not mention his secret status, and gave no indication of the tasks he was on. “We know he went on a mission. He completed the mission. Then he didn’t come back. That’s all the information we have,” his father told NPR.
Gives hope to Ukrainians: This fighter plane is said to be the “Kyiv Ghost”.(00:37)
“He dreamed of flying higher than the clouds”
His mother said he had seen MiGs over their house from an early age and had always dreamed of becoming a fighter pilot. He used to watch the paratroopers during their air exercises. He ran in their direction to see where they had landed. From his early childhood he always dreamed of the sky, of flying higher than the clouds.”
Tarabalka will not fly anymore. But he will go down in Ukrainian history as the ghost of Kyiv, no matter how many stories are made up of him. (from)