KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – Ukrainian officials say Russia has provided no credible evidence to back up their claims that their military shot down a military transport plane carrying Ukrainian prisoners to be exchanged for Russian prisoners. He said he did not.
The Ukrainian agency handling the prisoner exchange said late on Friday that Russian authorities had provided a list of the 65 Ukrainians the Russian government said had died in Wednesday's plane crash in Russia's Belgorod region “with a long delay.” Announced.
Ukraine's prisoner care coordination staff said relatives of the named prisoners were unable to identify their loved ones from photos of the crash site provided by Russian authorities. The agency's update quoted Ukraine's military intelligence chief, Kirillo Budanov, as saying Kiev had no verifiable information about who was on board the plane.
Russia's Ministry of Defense announced on Wednesday that a missile fired across the border crashed a transport plane bringing prisoners back to Ukraine. Local authorities in the city of Belgorod, which borders Ukraine, said all 74 people on board, including six crew members and three Russian soldiers, were killed in the accident.
“At this time, there is no evidence that the aircraft could have had this many people on board. Russian propaganda that the IL-76 aircraft was transporting 65 Ukrainian prisoners for a prisoner exchange 's claims still raise many questions,'' said Budanov, head of the Ukrainian POW Agency.
Social media users in the Belgorod region posted videos on Wednesday showing a plane falling from the sky over a snowy countryside and a huge fireball erupting where it appeared to hit the ground.
Kiev has neither confirmed nor denied that its forces shot down the Russian military transport plane that day, and Russia's claims that Ukrainian prisoners were killed in the crash cannot be independently verified. Earlier Friday, Ukrainian Air Force Commander Mykola Oreshchuk described Moscow's claims as “rampant Russian propaganda.”
Russia and Ukraine blame each other for transport plane crash, questions remain unanswered https://t.co/ePXZyofsmA
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) January 27, 2024
Ukrainian officials confirmed earlier this week that a prisoner exchange was scheduled to take place on Wednesday, but said it had been called off. They said Moscow was not demanding that a specific range of airspace be kept secure for a period of time, as in past prisoner exchanges.
A spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Ukraine called on Friday night for Russia to return the bodies of prisoners of war who may have died in the plane crash.
Red Cross media relations officer Oleksandr Vlasenko also said in a live interview with the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that Moscow was ready to return the bodies from the first reports of the incident. He said there was “very little time” before making the declaration. About Ukrainian prisoners of war.
Ukraine and Russia regularly exchange bodies of dead soldiers, but each transaction requires considerable preparation, Vlasenko said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called for an international investigation into the crash. Russia has sole access to the crash site.
Russian President Vladimir Putin promised on Friday to make public the results of the investigation into the Moscow crash. In his first public appearance on the incident, Putin reiterated earlier comments by Russian officials that the prisoner exchange on the day the plane crashed was “everything planned.”
“They attacked this plane knowing that there were prisoners on board. We don't know whether they did it on purpose or if it was a thoughtless mistake,” Putin told students in St. Petersburg. spoke about Ukraine at a meeting with
He did not provide details supporting the claim that Kiev was responsible, but said the plane's flight recorder had been found.
“There is a black box, and from now on everything will be collected and shown,” Putin said.
UN accuses Russia and Ukraine of possible war crimes, summary executions and torture of prisoners of war https://t.co/0ToxvQvmXu
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) March 25, 2023
