{"id":125505,"date":"2022-05-02T13:00:42","date_gmt":"2022-05-02T17:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=125505"},"modified":"2022-05-02T13:00:42","modified_gmt":"2022-05-02T17:00:42","slug":"rumors-of-his-demise-were-wrong-he-never-actually-existed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=125505","title":{"rendered":"Rumors of his demise were wrong; he never actually existed"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_123241\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-123241\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-123241\" src=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Ghost-of-Kyiv-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Ghost-of-Kyiv-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Ghost-of-Kyiv-333x333.jpg 333w, https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Ghost-of-Kyiv-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Ghost-of-Kyiv-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Ghost-of-Kyiv.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-123241\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Ghost of Kyiv<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>I&#8217;m really losing a lot of faith with any news coming out of Ukraine. I&#8217;m beginning to think that the government there is lying to us as much as <em>our <\/em>government, with the international media continuing their lying to us.<\/p>\n<p>We reported days ago about the apparently confirmed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=125367\">death of the &#8220;Ghost of Kyiv&#8221;<\/a>. Over the weekend, the Ukrainian Air Force said that&#8217;s not true. He&#8217;s still alive! Because he was never real. You see, he was an idea. Propaganda if you will.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">The information about the death of the The Ghost of <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Kyiv?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#Kyiv<\/a> is incorrect. The <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/GhostOfKyiv?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#GhostOfKyiv<\/a> is alive, it embodies the collective spirit of the highly qualified pilots of the Tactical Aviation Brigade who are successfully defending <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Kyiv?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#Kyiv<\/a> and the region.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Ukrainian Air Force (@KpsZSU) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/KpsZSU\/status\/1520572588560470016?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 1, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>From the <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2022\/05\/01\/heroic-ghost-of-kyiv-fighter-doesnt-actually-exist-ukraine-admits\/\">NY Post<\/a>;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The \u201cGhost of Kyiv\u201d is a myth, Ukrainian officials admitted over the weekend.<\/p>\n<p>After several news outlets last week identified the legendary, mysterious hero fighter pilot as a 29-year-old dad recently killed in battle with the Russians, military officials acknowledged Saturday that there was no such person.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe ghost of Kyiv is a superhero-legend, whose character was created by Ukrainians!\u201d Ukraine\u2019s Air Force Command wrote on Facebook.<\/p>\n<p>The reputed hero had been credited with taking out as many as 40 Russian aircraft until he was shot down March 13 while battling an \u201coverwhelming\u201d number of enemy forces, the Times of London had reported.<\/p>\n<p>The Times identified the supposed Ukrainian war hero as Major Stepan Tarabalka.<\/p>\n<p>But while Tarabalka was a distinguished war hero, he was not the \u201cGhost\u201d \u2014 because there never was such a person, Ukraine said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHero of Ukraine Stepan Tarabalka is NOT \u2018Ghost of Kyiv\u2019 and he did NOT shoot down 40 planes,\u201d said the country\u2019s Air Force Command.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, the moniker belongs collectively to all of Ukraine\u2019s hero fighter pilots, military officials said.<\/p>\n<p>\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 the command tweeted.<\/p>\n<p>The Ukrainian government had previously been key in creating and perpetuating the myth of a single brave and particularly on-target fighter pilot.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPeople call him the Ghost of Kyiv. And rightly so,\u201d the government tweeted in February of the reputed mysterious figure, saying the pilot had \u201calready become a nightmare for invading Russian aircraft.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But many people questioned whether the \u201cGhost\u201d was real, as a video purporting to be evidence of the fighter turned out to instead be from a video game.<\/p>\n<p>Some noted that the reported folk hero and his MiG-29 Fulcrum would not have the ammunition capacity to carry out the attacks he was credited with.<\/p>\n<p>Still, many people were keen to celebrate the enigmatic purported pilot.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTrue or not, this is EXACTLY the kind of inspiring story the resistance needs right now,\u201d a user said on Twitter.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m really losing a lot of faith with any news coming out of Ukraine. I&#8217;m beginning &hellip; <a title=\"Rumors of his demise were wrong; he never actually existed\" class=\"hm-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=125505\"><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Rumors of his demise were wrong; he never actually existed<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":664,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[640],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-125505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ukraine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/664"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=125505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125505\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=125505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=125505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=125505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}