(Corrects presentation of byline)
By Pavel Polityuk
KYIV/LVIV, Ukraine (Reuters) -A Ukrainian F-16 fighter pilot died in a crash while repelling a Russian air attack that involved hundreds of drones, cruise and ballistic missiles, authorities said on Sunday, as Moscow intensifies night-time air barrages in the fourth year of war.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy praised the pilot, Maksym Ustymenko, and bestowed upon him posthumously the title of Hero of Ukraine, the country’s highest decoration.
He also called for more support from Washington and Western allies to bolster Ukraine’s air defences after the attack, which damaged homes and infrastructure across the country and injured at least 12 people, according to local authorities.
In Kyiv, families huddled in metro stations for shelter after air raid sirens rung out. Machine-gun fire and explosions were heard across the capital and in the western city of Lviv, where such attacks are less common.
The governor of the Lviv region, bordering Poland, said the raid targeted critical infrastructure.
Ukraine has now lost three F-16s since it began operating the U.S.-made jets last year. Kyiv has not revealed the size of its F-16 fleet, but they have become a central and heavily used part of Ukraine’s defences.
The pilot flew the damaged jet away from a settlement but had no time to eject before it crashed, the Ukrainian Air Force said.
“The pilot used all of his onboard weapons and shot down seven air targets. While shooting down the last one, his aircraft was damaged and began to lose altitude,” the Air Force said on Telegram.
Ukrainian military expert Roman Svitan, speaking earlier this month, said the F-16 was not ideally suited to all tasks in the war, particularly repelling drones which swarm Ukrainian cities, as it is better used against higher-speed targets.
Zelenskiy, speaking in his nightly video address, said Ustymenko had been flying missions since the time of a campaign that began in 2014 against Russian-financed separatists who had seized parts of eastern Ukraine.
“He mastered four types of aircraft and had important results to his name in defending Ukraine,” he said. “It is painful to lose such people.”
The Ukrainian military said in total Russia launched 477 drones and 60 missiles of various types to Ukraine overnight. Ukrainian forces destroyed 211 of the drones and 38 missiles, it said, while 225 more drones were either lost due to electronic warfare or were decoys that carried no explosives.
Writing earlier on X, Zelenskiy said: “Moscow will not stop as long as it has the capability to launch massive strikes.” He said Russia had launched around 114 missiles, 1,270 drones, and 1,100 glide bombs just in the past week.
Russia’s state-run RIA Novosti news agency said one person was killed by a Ukrainian drone in the Russian-controlled part of Ukraine’s Luhansk region. Both Ukraine and Russia say they do not attack civilian targets.
POLITICAL WILL
Ukraine says recent attacks highlight the need for further support from Washington, which under President Donald Trump has not committed to new military aid for Ukraine.
Trump said he was considering a Ukrainian request for more Patriot missile batteries after he met Zelenskiy at a NATO summit last Wednesday.
“This war must be brought to an end – pressure on the aggressor is needed, and so is protection,” Zelenskiy said in his X post. “Ukraine needs to strengthen its air defence – the thing that best protects lives.”
He said Ukraine was ready to buy the American air defence systems and it counts on “leadership, political will, and the support of the United States, Europe, and all our partners.”
Russia has launched large-scale strikes on Ukrainian cities every few days in recent weeks, causing widespread damage, killing dozens of civilians and injuring hundreds more.
During the latest barrage, explosions were heard in Kyiv, Lviv, Poltava, Mykolaiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Cherkasy and the Ivano-Frankivsk regions, witnesses and regional governors said. The Ukrainian military said air strikes were recorded in six locations.
Eleven people, including two children, were injured in the central Cherkasy region, the regional governor said on Telegram. Three multi-storey buildings and a college were damaged. One woman was injured in western Ivano-Frankivsk region.
Rescuers evacuated residents from apartment blocks in Cherkasy that had charred walls and broken windows.
(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk in Kyiv and Andriy Perun in Lviv; Additional reporting by Alina Smutko, Gleb Garanich and Frank Jack Daniel in Kyiv; Editing by Susan Fenton, Ron Popeski and Andrea Ricci)
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