The Ukrainian pilots trained in Romania to fly F16 planes are stupid and stinky drunkards, according to a fake document that the pro-Russian blogger Dan Diaconu claims was drawn up by the Ministry of Defense.
The Ukrainians got fat
NEWS: Ouch! Is this the report on Ukrainian pilot training? Here's what it says: "After six months of training, out of 50 cadets, 3 are ready to fly the F-16. Unfortunately, there was a careless attitude towards learning English and other things that the cadets were supposed to study on their own. There is also a deterioration in athletic standards due to excessive weight gain and alcohol consumption. Despite the results, the Facility is a model of success...".
I don't know why they didn't call Babasha too. That would certainly have been an absolute success story.
NARRATIVE: 1. Future Ukrainian F-16 aircraft pilots are already training in Romania. 2. The Ukrainian recruits are undisciplined and incapable of becoming successful pilots.
CONTEXT: At an obvious disadvantage compared to Russia's air combat capabilities, Ukraine has asked its Western partners, since the first days of the Russian invasion, to send modern combat aircraft, and thus help Ukraine ensure a balance of forces. As a result, several countries, including Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway, have promised to deliver to Kyiv about 80 F-16 aircraft. However, a major impediment in expediting the first deliveries , which took place as late as last month, was the Ukrainian pilot’s inability to operate this type of aircraft, which is not part of the equipment of the Ukrainian army. Therefore, for about a year, Ukrainian officers have been learning to fly F-16s in training centers in Western Europe and the US.
In November 2023, Romania inaugurated the European F-16 Training Center , at the Fetești Air Base, intended for the training of future F-16 pilots from NATO states, but also from partner countries, including Ukraine, a fact that triggered the development of several narratives related to a potential involvement of our country in the war, also fueled by Moscow's threats, which stated that Romania's territory could become a target for the Russian forces, in the event that planes piloted by Ukrainians and taken off from our country would bomb Russian territory.
Dan Diaconu, who presents the fragment of the "document issued by the Ministry of National Defense", is a pro-Russian blogger, whose website is a conglomerate of conspiracy theories, fake news and disinformation related to most current topics (the pandemic, anti-COVID vaccine, climate change, the Israel-Hamas conflict, etc.), as well as articles in which Russia is considered a model state and its aggression against Ukraine appreciated. Diaconu also keeps a kind of frontline diary on Telegram, in which he informs his followers about the victories of the Russian army, excessively praising its successes on the battlefield. Moreover, when he announces the conquest and destruction from the ground of a new Ukrainian town, he speaks of its "liberation". Over time, Diaconu has promoted several false narratives and pieces of disinformation created by the Russian propaganda, such as those stating that partnerships with the US lead to bankruptcy , while agreements with Russia ensure prosperity, that the Ukrainian leaders secretly hold US citizenship , or that the Russians captured a state-of-the-art American drone
PURPOSE: To promote an anti-Ukrainian discourse, to provoke and amplify social tensions.
The "document" - a blatant fake
WHY THE NARRATIVE IS FALSE: The "document" presented by Dan Diaconu has almost all the characteristics of a fake, and that is obvious at a very superficial analysis of its structure. First, it has absolutely no header and, most importantly, it does not specify whether it is classified/unclassified, according to the Defense Ministry’s regulations. The entire text is full of spelling, grammatical and writing errors, looking more like an extremely poor automatic translation from another language, made with the help of a program like Google Translate. On the website of the MND we can find several reports titled: "Report on the activity carried out by the Ministry of National Defense", and not "Report about the activities of the National Defense Ministry", as appears in the analyzed text. Furthermore, we can see that the alignment of the lines on the page is central, and not to the left or left-right, as required by the rules of drafting an official document.
The text itself would be an insult to any press office of an official institution, as it is full of meaningless phrases ("Romania supported European efforts Defense Agencies regarding the promotion...", "programs and ects that benefits European funding", "3 cadets are ready to flew the F-16", "deterioration of the results of athletic standards", etc.). Moreover, words are divided into syllables in a manner that show a clear lack of basic grammar knowledge (operationali-zed)
Also proving a serious lack of knowledge of the topic, the author of the text states that the Feteşti Training Center aims at the collaboration, in the military field, of the member states of the European Union, when in fact, this is a NATO facility, and NATO is a completely different organization than the EU, although many countries are members of both.
Finally, the stamp that appears on the "document" looks like it has been hastily "clipped" from a document chosen at random from the Internet. A simple search with Google Lens led us to a potential source of the image , the contents and angle of inclination of the stamp being identical. Moreover, a stamp of the Official Journal Autonomous Company to certify the authenticity and compliance with the original of a document issued by the Ministry of National Defense, is useless and obsolete. The reports of the Defense Ministry are certified by the Official Journal only if they are published in its pages, and in this way have the status of official documents of the Romanian state.
In March this year, in his capacity as head of the Supreme Council of National Defense, Klaus Iohannis approved the training of approximately 50 Ukrainian army pilots on American F-16 fighter jets at this base, a number written down with accuracy by the author of the "document", although the information signed by Iohannis spoke of "approximately 50 pilots". In any case, at this moment, no definite date has yet been established for the start of their training, but it is estimated that it will be this fall. Besides, there is absolutely no evidence that Ukrainian pilots started training in Romania; currently, the Feteşti base is used exclusively for the training of Romanian pilots . Even if the training of the Ukrainian pilots had started in early July, still they couldn’t have possibly accumulated 6 months of training, as Dan Diaconu claims.
As to how the Ukrainian soldiers are described, we are dealing here with the promotion of stereotypes often circulated by the pro-Russian propaganda, which characterizes them as chronic drunkards, indolent and having limited intellectual capacities. Contrary to these characterizations, the Western instructors say about the Ukrainian pilots that they are extremely motivated and very strong mentally , and have real skills to fly the F-16 aircraft, based on the rich experience gained in aerial combat since the beginning of the war.
Check sources:
---copie-image.webp)
