Whatever Happened to the Ghost of Kyiv? (Part 3) Stepan Tarabalka - The Face of the Legend
Stepan Tarabalka in Pilot Training
I have learned the least about Stepan Tarabalka’s military exploits compared to all the other heroes of the 40th TAB. This could change if I find a contact who knew him, but for now not much is known about the young pilot in terms of the media—right wing, left wing, Russian, Ukrainian, he is forever the man journalists thought might be the “Ghost of Kyiv”. This is because his helmet and gloves went on auction in the UK to support the war effort. For a little while, he was credited with 40 kills. Media skeptical of the myth of the ghost immediately (and correctly) scoffed at such a high number. However, most media outlets never seemed to calculate cruise missiles or drones into their kill counts for the Ghost, because the myth was about a romantic notion of air-to-air and pilot-to-pilot victories. I always assumed cruise missiles and drones were part of the story from the start. And, in fact, they are important victory count for every Ukrainian ace. They are part of a new type of war. Drone on drone dogfights are now a regular engagement.
We cannot confirm much about Tarabalka as a pilot. We don’t even know his call sign. We do know the date and area of when he was shot down and did not return, and we are told it was a dangerous and risky mission from the get-go. This might account for the continued secrecy regarding his fate. I hate to think his death to be yet another fratricide, but it is possible considering the Ukrainian Air Force would rather have not been forced to admit that the Grey Wolf and Moonfish were also victims of friendly fire. Those admissions only came on the heels of some savvy journalism.
And yet, someone wanted Stepan’s memory honored enough to call him the ghost. Someone thought him worthy enough to donate his personal effects to auction with the title. And it worked, at least until the 40 kills exaggeration forced the Ukrainian Air Force to declare the Ghost a myth. However, because of his time carrying the moniker of the Ghost, we know a bit more about Tarabalka’s family and personal life at this point in 2025 than many of the brave Ukrainian pilots who will never return from the sky. In this regard we can imagine his family as a sort of look into the family life of every pilot who battles in the skies over Ukraine.
Stepan Tarabalka was born in the small village of Korolivka near Kolomyia in the Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast. Kolomyia has an Air base, and here the young Stepan would be inspired to become a pilot. For a kid from a working-class family, like Stepan, becoming a pilot was a dream that was probably out of reach. It would be like a middle school kid wanting to become an NFL football player. When Stepan was young, pilots still came from Soviet aristocratic families. In later years, Natalia and Ivan spent a lot of time working in Portugal, where they could earn a lot more money than at home in Ukraine. And yet Stepan reached his goals, with his effort and the prayers of his mother.
Stepan’s Parents
Stepan’s mother also revealed in her interview with Eric Westervelt of NPR on 25 March, 2022, that after Stepan completed flight training he would often buzz the small villages of his hometown with a Mig-29 flyby and a wing-rock salute. (Westevelt, 2022) This interview can still be listened to at the link in my works cited. . Maybe his callsign was “trumpet” or “fanfare”. Maybe it was something in Ukrainian that doesn’t translate. In my noveliztion of the Ghost of Kyiv, I call him “Deviant” because I imagine he had to break protocol or flight restrictions to fly over the villages, even if he was scheduled for transitions at Kolomia Air base. After all, he was known for putting on a little air show.
Cadet Stepan Tarabalka
It wasn’t long after completing a pilot training that Stepan found himself flying in a war, conducting bombing missions against Putin’s quite mercenary invasion of the Donbas. I like to think he went to war with a callsign that reminded people how he grew up with a love of music, and could play the trumpet. He served with the 40th TAB during the war years Americans tend to know far too little about. So, whatever the mission was that he did not survive, it no doubt required the expertise of a veteran to fly low and hug the terrain. In those early days of the war, Russian surface to air threats were everywhere inside Ukraine.
Stepan was shot down over the Zhytomyr Oblast. During the first weeks of March, the Zhytomyr highway became one of many notorious “Highways of Death” where Russian troops (or orcs as the Ukranians call them) deliberately targeted civilians. They had already killed dozens. On 13 March, as Stepan took to the air, a local police officer named Andriy Ziniak was shot in the back and killed. (Martyniuk, 2023). I imagine Stepan was asked to be the point distraction fighter so SU-25s could attack Russian armor along the highway, or perhaps attack the large 40 mile traffic jam of Russian military vehicles headed for Kyiv. He is said to have been outnumbered in a dogfight, which was always the case in those days. Its not hard to imagine yet another nobel sacrifice so more of his brothers could live, as Stepan was awarded the order of the gold star. He was laid to rest in a closed casket funeral. He is survived by his sister, Julia, his wife Olena, and a son who would now be eleven named Yarik.
I like to think one day Yarik will take to the sky like his father. Only in a brand new F-35 over the skies of a free Ukraine, flying wingtip formation with a Ghost of Kyiv.
Stepan and Wife Olena
Works Cited
Westervelt, Eric (25 March 2022). One Ukrainian family grieves the loss of their fighter pilot son. NPR. Retrieved 31 March 2025.
Martniuk, Yevheniia (10 April 2023. Ukraine’s death highway: How Russian troops executed dozens of civilians near Kyiv. Euromaiden. Retrieved 31 March 2025.
