The Ghost of Kyiv
A story of a lone Ukrainian MiG-29 pilot who shot down six Russian planes over Kyiv spread within a day of the 24 February 2022 invasion. Reports describe it as a wartime legend.
Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022. The Associated Press reports that the legend emerged a day later, as social media users passed around a story, with no evidence behind it, about an unnamed fighter pilot credited with downing several Russian planes alone. Wikipedia gives the nickname as the Ghost of Kyiv and the claim as six Russian planes shot down over Kyiv by a MiG-29 ace.
NBC News says Petro Poroshenko, who had been Ukraine's president, helped it along by tweeting a picture of a masked pilot pictured as having downed six Russian jets in the first hours of the war. Snopes records that a miscaptioned video that supposedly showed him in action circulated with the rumor.
Wikipedia says the origin of the story is unclear. It says Ukrainian and Western media spread it widely, along with official sources, among them Ukraine's armed forces and its Security Service, and that some credit it with lifting Ukrainian morale.
"The Ghost of Kyiv (Ukrainian: Привид Києва, romanized: Pryvyd Kyieva,[1] pronounced [ˈprɪwɪd ˈkɪjewɐ]) is the nickname given to a mythical[2][3][4] MiG-29 Fulcrum flying ace who was alleged to have shot down six Russian planes over Kyiv during the Kyiv offensive on 24 February 2022. The origin of the myth is unclear, but it was propagated widely by both Ukrainian and Western media outlets, as well as official sources such as the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the Security Service of Ukraine. The Ghost of Kyiv has been credited as a morale booster for Ukrainians during the Russo-Ukrainian War."
- 'Ghost of Kyiv' fighter pilot is a myth, Ukraine's air force says, Associated Press (2022)
- Ukraine admits the 'Ghost of Kyiv' isn't real, but the myth was potent for a reason, NBC News (2022)
- Is This 'Ghost of Kyiv' Video Real?, Snopes (2022)