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Ukraine is mourning the loss of three fighter pilots killed as two training aircraft collided in the skies some 90 miles west of Kyiv. Singled out for particular praise by president Volodymr Zelensky and Ukraine’s airforce is Captain Andriy Pilshchykov, a pilot who went by the military callsign “Juice”. The late pilot, who was 30 years old when the crash occured over the western Zhytomyr region on Friday, had become known not just for his defence of Ukraine, but also for his passionate advocacy for the United States to provide Kyiv with F-16 fighter jets. The Mig-29 pilot first won fame in Ukraine as he took part in “dogfights” with Moscow’s fighter jets in the skies above Kyiv during the initial months of Russia’s invasion, according to Ukrainian news outlets. As Russian air sorties over Kyiv grew fewer, Pilshchykov continued to defend Ukraine’s skies as he sought to intercept Russian cruise missiles and drones before they struck targets on the ground – and by last May had already racked up 500 hours of combat flights. Last summer, he was one of two Ukrainian pilots chosen to travel to Washington to lobby members of the US Congress to provide Kyiv with F-16 fighter jets, which Joe Biden’s administration eventually agreed to do in May. “Juice” also gave multiple interviews with Western media outlets, speaking to Sky News, the BBC, CNN and Washington Post to name a few, as he fought Ukraine’s case to be provided with the jets. In one interview with the BBC, he said of his missions: “Intercepting the cruise missiles, your mission is to save the lives on the ground, to save the city. If you are not able, it's a terrible feeling that somebody will die. Somebody will die in minutes and you didn't prevent that.” In another broadcast with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, he said: “All of us are ready to fight, just with our jets, with our guns, even just in the fields with rifles. “So our people, including me, we are ready to fight Russians, and we are ready to defend our country, to defend our people in absolutely any ways. But we need tools, effective tools, to do this efficiently.” His call sign, “Juice”, was reportedly given to him by US pilots during a joint training exercise because he did not drink alcohol, and air force spokesperson Yuriy Ihnat hailed him as a “main driver of an advocacy group promoting many decisions on the F-16s”, who was “in constant contact with Californian pilots”. Speaking to The Guardian, Mr Ihnat also praised “Juice” as a driver of reforms in the air force was “trying to bring Nato standards into Ukraine … and even western traditions, such as the burning of pianos to honour a fallen pilot”. His death has struck a chord in Ukraine, where official footage on Sunday appeared to show troops lined up on a runway to commemorate Pilshchykov and his two fallen comrades Major Viacheslav Minka and Major Serhii Prokazin, as a piano played a sombre lament and was set alight in tribute. Ukraine’s prosecutor general’s office has opened a criminal investigation into whether flight preparation rules were violated prior to the fatal crash on Friday, which involved two L-39 training aircraft. As he vowed that the investigation would clarify the circumstances of the crash, Mr Zelensky hailed “Juice” in his nightly address on Saturday as “one of those who helped our country a lot”, adding: “Ukraine will never forget anyone who defended Ukraine’s free sky. May they always be remembered.” Mr Ihnat, of Ukraine’s air force, described Pilshchykov as a “mega talent”, adding: “You can't even imagine how much he wanted to fly an F-16. But now that American planes are actually on the horizon, he will not fly them.” Writing on Facebook, Mr Ihnat added: “Andriy Pilshchykov was not just a pilot, he was a young officer with great knowledge and great talent. He was an excellent communicator, the driver of reforms in Air Force aircraft, a participant in many projects. “I often supported his crazy ideas, which gave incredible results.” Nolan Peterson, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council think-tank was among Western commentators to pay tribute to the pilot, saying: “The stories he told me about flying his MiG-29 in combat against Russia are the stuff of epics. He is a hero and will be rightly remembered as such.” Read More Ukraine-Russia war live: Kyiv claims five Moscow fighter jets hit by drones, as Prigozhin ‘confirmed dead’ Ukrainian high jumper Mahuchikh takes gold in emotional close to world championships Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin confirmed dead by Russian investigators after plane crash Ukraine investigates incident that killed 3 pilots while Russia attacks with cruise missiles ‘Gangster’ Putin committed ‘most ostentatious’ act of savagery in our lifetimes, says Boris

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Democratic presidential candidate and anti-vaccine advocate Robert F Kennedy Jr said during a Twitter Spaces event on Monday that he would not take away people’s guns as a solution to reducing mass shootings and instead pointed the finger at pharmaceutical drugs. “My position on the gun control is I’m not going to take away anybody’s guns,” Mr Kennedy, 69, said in response to a listener-submitted question about gun control while speaking about his political platform with Elon Musk and venture capitalist David Sacks. “I’m a constitutional absolutist. We can argue about whether the Second Amendment was intended to protect guns. That argument has now been settled by the Supreme Court.” Instead, Mr Kennedy made unfounded claims that psychiatric drugs are linked to mass shootings, “There’s something happening in our country right now that is not happening anywhere, that has never happened in human history,” he said. “Guns, the proliferation, clearly, abets violence, but anybody who tells you that they can remove enough guns, AR-15s, by tinkering at the margins and get to the situation they have in western Europe is puling your leg,” he added. “It’s not going to happen.” According to researchers, there’s no evidence for a link between pharmaceutical drugs and mass shootings. Over 10 per cent of the US population takes anti-depressants, and experts say if such medicines were linked to violence, one would expect to see more shootings, and more shootings committed by groups who are prescribed the treatments at a higher rate. "If there was a connection or link, one would expect it to be pronounced, or at least much greater than we are seeing," Dr James Knoll, director of forensic psychiatry at SUNY Upstate Medical University, told Politifact. "Why do we not see increased violence in women? People over 60?" In fact, according to a USA Today review of mass shootings, a minority of school shooters were prescribed medications. "I am unaware of any consistent, credible accounts that provide strong evidence regarding the prevalence of SSRI usage in cases involving school shootings or a causal relationship between SSRIs and school shootings," Daniel Mears, a professor of criminology at Florida State University, told the paper. Read More RFK Jr compares Elon Musk to American revolutionaries during conspiracy-driven Twitter event

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