He shot down a lot of Russian planes, survived enemy assaults and changed into a logo of Ukraine’s unusually efficient air defenses, incomes a daring wartime moniker: The Ghost of Kyiv.
He’s additionally, it seems, a fantasy.
“The ghost of Kyiv is a superhero-legend, whose personality was once created by way of Ukrainians!” Ukraine’s air power command wrote on Fb on Saturday, dispelling a monthslong rumor — fueled by way of Ukrainian government themselves — that had invigorated the resistance to Russia’s invasion.
The Ukrainian observation got here after some information retailers, together with the Instances of London, known the Ghost of Kyiv as Maj. Stepan Tarabalka, a real 29-year-old who died in an air combat in March. The declare echoed throughout social media and tabloid publications in Ukraine and the West, seeming to substantiate that the tale of the heroic fighter was once actual.
As an alternative, it has became out to be some of the extra a hit items of propaganda in a knowledge battle that, from time to time, Ukraine has fought as fiercely because it has at the battlefield.
It was once just a day after the start of Russia’s invasion that the Ukrainian media began reporting that an unknown pilot of a MIG-29 fighter jet had downed six enemy planes in 30 hours. Memes and illustrations began circulating on-line with the hashtag #ghostofkyiv, gathering masses of tens of millions of perspectives.
Even a former president of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, tweeted an image of a pilot who he mentioned was once the Ghost of Kyiv and who had “six victories over Russian pilots!”
“With such tough defenders, Ukraine will unquestionably win!” Poroshenko wrote. (The picture, it became out, was once from a 2019 Twitter submit by way of the Ukrainian Protection Ministry.)
The Ukrainian govt additionally joined in. On Feb. 27 it relayed on Twitter the tale and the picture, calling the unknown pilot “a nightmare for invading Russian aircrafts.” It posted a video praising the pilot that integrated a clip from a fight flight simulator.
Round the similar time, when the Ukrainian Protection Ministry introduced on Fb that dozens of discharged army pilots had been returning to the air power, it referred to the fascination with the nameless pilot: “Who is aware of, possibly one among them is the air avenger at the MIG-29.”
The tales proliferated and overlapped. After stories in early March that the Ghost of Kyiv have been shot down, Ihor Mosiychuk, a former Ukrainian lawmaker, reported that the pilot survived, went again to his base, took off in every other jet and downed every other enemy aircraft.
“The ghost is alive!” he wrote on Fb. The Kyiv Put up reported that he had destroyed as many as 49 planes.
Skepticism unfold in some quarters. However the legend best grew. Artists produced NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, with the pilot’s symbol. Blue and gold “Ghost of Kyiv” flyers and illustrations circulated on-line.
On Friday, a number of publications known the pilot as Tarabalka, an airman who died in combat March 13 and was once posthumously awarded the army honor “Hero of Ukraine.” The Instances of London additionally quoted Ukrainian resources as pronouncing the pilot’s helmet and goggles had been anticipated to move on sale at an public sale in London.
The following day, the air power command of Ukraine’s military debunked the claims. “Hero of Ukraine Stepan Tarabalka is NOT ‘Ghost of Kyiv’ and he did NOT shoot down 40 planes,” it wrote on Fb. But it surely nonetheless labored to stay the parable going.
“The #GhostOfKyiv is alive,” the air power wrote on Twitter. “It embodies the collective spirit of the extremely certified pilots of the Tactical Aviation Brigade who’re effectively protecting #Kyiv and the area.”
For plenty of Ukrainians, that was once all that mattered.
“He IS a legend,” Lesia Vasylenko, a Ukrainian lawmaker, wrote on Twitter. “He can’t be killed — he’s a ghost.”