{"id":25309,"date":"2022-05-02T18:43:07","date_gmt":"2022-05-02T18:43:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/uncategorized\/2022\/05\/02\/ukraine-admits-ghost-of-kyiv-fighter-pilot-is-a-myth\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T02:34:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T02:34:00","slug":"ukraine-admits-ghost-of-kyiv-fighter-pilot-is-a-myth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/flashpoints\/2022\/05\/02\/ukraine-admits-ghost-of-kyiv-fighter-pilot-is-a-myth\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine admits \u2018Ghost of Kyiv\u2019 fighter pilot is a myth"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On social media, the \u201cGhost of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/flashpoints\/ukraine\/2022\/05\/01\/some-evacuated-from-mariupol-us-lawmakers-visit-kyiv\/\" target=\"_blank\">Kyiv<\/a>\u201d was a military hero, an ace fighter pilot hailed for supposedly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.grunge.com\/780455\/what-we-know-about-the-ukrainian-ghost-of-kyiv\/\" target=\"_blank\">shooting down multiple Russian planes<\/a>. The tales began just days into the war and circulated for months, bolstered by official Ukrainian accounts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But on Saturday, Ukrainian authorities admitted that the legendary pilot was a myth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe Ghost of Kyiv is a super-hero legend whose character was created by Ukrainians!\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/flashpoints\/ukraine\/\" target=\"_blank\">Ukraine<\/a>\u2019s air force <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/kpszsu\/posts\/363834939117794\">said in Ukrainian on Facebook.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The statement came after multiple media outlets published stories wrongly identifying Major Stepan Tarabalka as the man behind the moniker. Tarabalka was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/PvkZahid\/posts\/1715691608771409\">a real pilot who died on March 13<\/a> during air combat and was posthumously awarded the title Hero of Ukraine, Ukraine\u2019s air force said last month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But he was not the Ghost of Kyiv, the force said in Saturday\u2019s statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe information about the death of the The Ghost of #Kyiv is incorrect,\u201d Ukraine\u2019s air force wrote in <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/KpsZSU\/status\/1520572588560470016\">a separate post<\/a> Saturday on Twitter. \u201cThe #GhostOfKyiv is alive, it embodies the collective spirit of the highly qualified pilots of the Tactical Aviation Brigade who are successfully defending #Kyiv and the region.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\t<aside class=\"smg-interstitial-link wp-block-smg-interstitial-link\">\n\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/militarytimes\/off-duty\/military-culture\/2022\/03\/04\/how-ukraine-is-winning-the-propaganda-war\/\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__inner\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__media\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" src=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Untitled-design-47-1.png-1.png?w=300\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__image wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" \/>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__content\">\n\t\t\t\t<span class=\"smg-interstitial-link__kicker\">Related<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"smg-interstitial-link__title\">How Ukraine is winning the propaganda war<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p class=\"smg-interstitial-link__excerpt\">Outside boots on the ground, this war is a battle for the world&#039;s hearts and minds.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/aside>\n\t\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The legend emerged just a day after Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, as social media users began to spread claims, without evidence, of an anonymous fighter pilot who had single-handedly taken down multiple Russian planes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Memes, unrelated photos, and even footage from a flight simulator video game circulated on social media, claiming to show the Ghost of Kyiv during combat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On Feb. 25, former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko tweeted a photo that Ukraine\u2019s Ministry of Defense had shared <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DefenceU\/status\/1121409549662138369\">three years earlier<\/a>, falsely claiming it showed the Ghost of Kyiv who had taken down six Russian pilots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Two days later, Ukraine\u2019s official Twitter account shared a video including the same picture, along with footage of fighter jets in combat, set to pulsating music, with the caption: \u201cPeople call him the Ghost of Kyiv. And rightly so \u2014 this UAF ace dominates the skies over our capital and country, and has already become a nightmare for invading Russian aircrafts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That same day, Ukraine\u2019s Security Service, the SBU, shared the same old photo on Telegram \u2014 but now claiming he had shot down 10 occupying planes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By the time news outlets, including the Times of London, falsely identified the pilot as Tarabalka on Friday, reports had increased the ghost\u2019s toll to 40 planes. The Times later updated its story to reflect the air force\u2019s new position on the Ghost of Kyiv.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On social media, the \u201cGhost of Kyiv\u201d was a military hero, an ace fighter pilot hailed for supposedly shooting down multiple Russian planes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":43937,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":8,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[101,8,23,89,12,26,62],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3221],"class_list":["post-25309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news-roundup","category-flashpoints","category-home","category-middle-column","category-news","category-newsletters","category-pentagon-congress"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"Q6Z5E6MOG5DYFLP47RAPNQAQIQ","arc_canonical_url":"\/flashpoints\/ukraine\/2022\/05\/02\/ukraine-admits-ghost-of-kyiv-fighter-pilot-is-a-myth\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented 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