After several news agencies last week recognized the legendary, mysterious, heroic fighter pilot as a 29-year-old father who was recently killed in a battle with the Russians, military officials acknowledged on Saturday that there was no such person.
“The ghost of Kiev is a superhero-legend, whose character was created by Ukrainians!” The Command of the Air Force of Ukraine wrote on Facebook.
The famous hero was believed to have hijacked up to 40 Russian aircraft until it was shot down on March 13, while fighting an “overwhelming” number of enemy forces, the Times of London reported.
The Times has identified the alleged Ukrainian war hero as Major Stepan Tarabalka.
Ukraine admits that the “Ghost of Kiev” was made. Facebook / General
But while Tarabalka was a distinguished war hero, he was not a “ghost” – because there has never been such a person, Ukraine said.
“The hero of Ukraine, Stepan Tarabalka, is NOT the ‘Ghost of Kiev’ and he did NOT shoot down 40 planes,” the country’s Air Force Command said.
Instead, the surname belongs collectively to all the heroic fighter pilots of Ukraine, military officials said.
The Command of the Air Force of Ukraine posted on Facebook that the “Ghost of Kiev” was a “legend of superheroes”. Twitter / @ yirmiucderece
“#GhostOfKyiv is alive. “It embodies the collective spirit of the highly trained pilots of the Tactical Air Force Brigade who successfully defend #Kievo and the region,” the administration said on Twitter.
The Ukrainian government has in the past been instrumental in creating and perpetuating the myth of a single brave fighter pilot, and especially in the target.
“People call him the Ghost of Kiev. “And rightly so,” the government wrote on Twitter in February about the famous mysterious figure, saying that the pilot had “already become a nightmare for the invasion of Russian aircraft.”
The media had previously recognized Stepan Tarabalka as “the ghost of Kiev”, but Ukraine says that is not the case. Twitter / @sovietarmyfanThe “Ghost of Kiev” is said to have shot down 40 Russian aircraft. Getty Images
But many people questioned whether “Ghost” was real, as a video allegedly proving the fighter turned out to be from a video game.
Some noticed that the said popular hero and his MiG-29 Fulcrum would not have the ammunition capability to carry out the attacks attributed to him.
However, many people wanted to celebrate the enigmatic supposed pilot.
“True or not, this is EXACTLY the kind of inspirational story that resistance needs right now,” one Twitter user said.
