At the turn of July and August 2024, a photo of the report that allegedly damped from the Romanian Ministry of Defense appeared in the media. According to the document, 47 out of 50 Ukrainian pilots could not complete the course on managing American fighters due to alcohol abuse and unwillingness to learn English. We checked the reliability of such publications.

Photo The report allegedly prepared at the Romania Ministry of Defense began to spread on July 31, 2024. This document says that only three of the 50 Ukrainian pilots who were trained at the local air base received admission to flights on American F-16 fighters. “Ukrainian pilots are carelessly treated, they do not experience special craving for the study of the English language, which leaves an imprint on the possibility of operating aircraft. Sports indicators after sending to Romania also crawled down due to a set of weight and alcohol, ”the document in the plot of the television channel“Russia 24". The report and its content were also told "Russian newspaper","Arguments and facts","Moscow Komsomolets" Sputnik and many large Telegram channels, among which Fighterbomber (287,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), Colonelcassad (263,000), Condottiero (132 000) and "Zakhar Prilepin"(82 000).

Source: screenshot from the Vesti program "Russia 24"

Since the beginning of the full -scale Russian invasion, representatives of the Armed Forces asked Western allies provide them with American F-16 fighters. In August 2023, Denmark and the Netherlands Received The US consent to the transfer of several such aircraft to Ukraine. Subsequently, Belgium and Norway joined the so -called coalition of fighters, and the total number of cars promised to Kyiv approached 80. Almost a year later, on July 31, 2024, the Bloomberg agency reportedthat the first batch of the long-awaited F-16 arrived in Ukraine. A few days later The Economist magazine Clarifiedthat we are talking about ten aircraft, and the rest will be at the disposal of the Armed Forces until the end of 2025.

Deliveries were delayed, including due to the need to train Ukrainian pilots who had not previously managed such fighters. In May 2024, the first group of pilots Completed Preparatory courses in the USA. The exact number of pilots was not specified for security reasons, but some media They wroteThree Ukrainian troops received admission to flights to the F-16, and soon four more will join them. In Europe for teaching Ukrainian pilots Available military bases in Denmark, as well as a specialized training center EFTC, open In November 2023, on the basis of Fetesti in Romania.

The appearance of the Romanian report on Ukrainian pilots coincided with the publications that the first F-16 aircraft transferred by Western allies arrived in Ukraine. In the news agenda of the Russian media, these two topics often mentioned Together: According to the proximal publications, Kyiv received a “negligible” party of “used fighters”, which simply nobody to manage, because Ukrainian pilots failed the preparation. As part of this narrative, some media outlets tried demonstratethat even the supply of the F-16 will not help Ukraine to get an advantage at the front, and "defeat of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and NATO is inevitable."

President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky against the backdrop of one of the F-16 fighters handed over to Kyiv. Source: Office of the President of Ukraine

However, the report published by Russian Telegram channels raises a number of questions. First, Romanian-speaking Telegram users Turned Attention to the typo in the document header: instead of Piloților Ucraneni, Piloților Ucranieni is written there. Secondly, the number of 50 pilots, mentioned in the report, seems unrealistic large. For example, the United States for the current financial year (from October 1, 2023 to September 30, 2024) Planning Teach 12 APU pilots. Denmark, which counts One of the leaders of the coalition of fighters, by the end of 2024 will prepare About 20 people, said the Minister of Defense of the Country Troils Lund Powlesen. At the same time, in May, Politico publication with reference to sources in the Ukrainian leadership It wrotethat they were unhappy there: the interlocutors in a conversation with reporters complained that there were not enough places in the training centers.

July 30, 2024, the day before the appearance of the report on Ukrainian pilots on the network, the publication Euronews It was reported that the first set consisting of seven Romanian pilots completed a nine-month F-16 fighter management course in EFTC. The article was not said about 50 Ukrainians who, according to the publications of the Russian media and posts in Telegram, allegedly trained with representatives of the Air Force Romania.

August 2 of the Ministry of Defense of this country refuted involvement in the document, widespread on the Internet on his behalf. According to the department, the screenshot was created on the basis of a public report On the activities of the Ministry for 2023 - it was from there that the creators of the fake document borrowed a most part of the text. The original report is about the recently open EFTC center and Romania cooperation plans with NATO partners.

Paragraphs copied from report The Ministry of Defense of Romania for 2023, allocated by color

The Ministry of Defense of Romania also confirmed that during the work of the EFTC, only one group of pilots managed to go there, which consisted exclusively from the Romanian pilots, and their Ukrainian colleagues have not yet started training.

The earliest “tested” publication of a fake report appeared in the Telegram channel “Cat Kostyan»July 31 at 14:38 Moscow time and scored 84,000 views. This channel has been convicted more than once in the spread of fakes, including aimed at discrediting Ukraine, APU And countries West.

Thus, the report of the Romania Ministry of Defense that Ukrainian pilots failed preparatory courses for piloting F-16 fighters, a fake, which refuted the department itself. Its representatives drew attention to the fact that the Armed Forces of Ukraine had not even begun to undergo training at a specialized center, and the text on the viral screenshot was compiled from fragments of the document of a year ago.

Photo on the cover: EncyClopædia Britannica