ZHYTOMYR, Ukraine — When the fighter jet crashed into these northwestern Ukrainian woods, killing its 27-year-old pilot, splintering trees and spewing fuel, it tore a gash in the forest canopy. Then it exploded. The wildfire that followed charred trees and earth, threatening two nearby villages.
Two months later, fire extinguished, the area still smells like jet fuel. Debris litters the ground. A jagged piece of metal, painted Ukrainian blue and yellow, rests between green shoots of grass growing through blackened leaves. Another shard juts from a tree some 20-feet above the ground.
“It’s a catastrophe,” says Viktor Radushinskiy, a member of the state forestry department.
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