Side by side in the cockpits of their Yak fighters, Yekaterina Budanova and Lydia Litvyak blazed a trail that no female pilots had walked before. Yet while Litvyak became world-famous, Budanova — her closest companion and equal in courage — remained in the shadows of history. It is time to change that.

A Passion Ignited Early

Yekaterina Vasiyevna Budanova was born on 7 December 1916 in the village of Konoplyanka, in what is now the Smolensk region of Russia. Like many Soviet women of her generation, she was inspired by the heroic female aviators of the 1930s and learned to fly at an aeroclub in Moscow. By the time the war began she was an instructor, accumulating hundreds of flying hours and passing her skills on to others.

Side by Side with Litvyak

Budanova joined the 586th Fighter Aviation Regiment alongside Lydia Litvyak in 1942. The two women became friends and rivals in the best sense — each pushing the other to fly harder and fight smarter. Together they transferred to front-line mixed regiments where they flew alongside male pilots, an arrangement almost without precedent in the air forces of any nation at the time.

Flying the Yak-1 over the skies of Stalingrad and the southern front, Budanova proved herself a formidable combat pilot. She was credited with 6 individual aerial victories and 5 shared kills — a total of 11 confirmed claims — and was known for her aggressive, fearless approach in the cockpit.

The Last Sortie

On 19 July 1943 — just thirteen days before Litvyak also disappeared — Budanova was shot down during a combat mission over the Saratov region. She was twenty-six years old. Unlike Litvyak, whose fate was eventually confirmed by the discovery of her remains, Budanova’s burial site was found and confirmed more quickly, in a Ukrainian village.

Belated Recognition

Like her comrade Litvyak, Budanova was denied the Hero of the Soviet Union award for decades due to her status as “missing in action.” She too was posthumously awarded the Gold Star of Hero of the Russian Federation in 1993, fifty years after her death. The honour, long overdue, recognised what those who flew beside her already knew — that Yekaterina Budanova was among the finest fighter pilots the Soviet Union ever produced.

Her story is a reminder that history does not always honour those who deserve it most — but that the truth eventually finds its way to the light.