Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said in his nightly address that the men included Andriy Pilshchykov, "a Ukrainian officer, one of those who greatly helped our state".
Investigators have begun to look into the causes of the accident, as the air force said there was no suggestion of Russian involvement. However, the incident underlines the risks to Ukrainian pilots who are often having to rely on old Soviet airframes that would not be in use were it not for the war.
Fluent in English, Pilshchykov was one of two pilots who went to Washington DC last summer to meet members of the US Congress and lobby for F-16 planes for Ukraine, and he appeared regularly in the US media to further the country's case.
The extended lobbying effort finally succeeded this month when Denmark and the Netherlands said they would supply the jets. A spokesperson for Ukraine's air force said it was confident Ukraine would eventually end up with 120 F-16s, with the first likely to be flying over the country's skies early next year.
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