Evidence Indicates Ukraine Shot Down Russian Plane with 65 Ukrainian POWs
Jan. 25—A Russian IL-76 cargo aircraft, on its way from the Moscow region to the Belgorod region, carrying 65 captured Ukrainian military on their way for a scheduled prisoner exchange, was shot down Jan. 24, around 11:15 a.m. (GMT+3) local time, about 90 km from Ukraine’s border, killing all aboard. Ukraine officials have issued a series of twisting and turning statements, including both confirming and not confirming that they shot down the plane; claiming that weapons supplies were on board, not Ukrainian prisoners; claiming that prisoners may have been on board but Moscow hadn’t informed them, etc. By the end of day, it appears from a Ukrainian report that the UAF General Staff had provided a non-admission admission.
First, Belgorod’s Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov announced that the transport plane with the Ukrainian POWs had crashed in his region, that local emergency teams were on site, but that all on board had died.
Kiev’s Ukrainska Pravda newspaper reported, citing sources in Ukraine’s military, that the aircraft had been destroyed by Ukrainian forces, and that it had been carrying S-300 air defense missiles. Within minutes, the daily removed any mention of Ukraine’s role in bringing down the aircraft. A correction appeared: Earlier, in the material with reference to sources in the Armed Forces, it was indicated that they were involved in the downing of the plane. At the same time, another source of the UP did not confirm this information."
At this point, the strange correction had a second source, not denying that Ukraine shot down the plane, but simply not confirming it. It raises the question what that source was telling UP, but apparently UP got the message that they needed to take the part about Ukraine downing the plane out of their coverage.
The Russian Defense Ministry initially announced that, besides the 65 Ukrainian POWs, there were also 6 crew members and 3 people accompanying the POWs, and that they were being transported to Belgorod region for an exchange. Defense officials also noted that Moscow has dispatched a commission to establish the cause of the incident.
The Ukrainian Defense Ministry went silent, only saying that they were looking into the matter. However, Kyrylo Budanov’s Military Directorate (GUR) section admitted that a prisoner exchange had been scheduled for today. Then it blamed Moscow, saying that Kiev had not been asked to ensure the security of the air space today for the POW swap, as had been the case during previous swaps. (This, curiously, is not a denial that they knew the flight plan of the plane, or even that they knew the POWs were on board.) From there, it suggested that Russia’s claim that Ukraine shot down the plane could be “a planned action to destabilize the situation in Ukraine and weaken international support for our state.”
An update from Russia’s Defense Ministry then was much more definitive, claiming that the “Kiev regime committed a terrorist act.” Russia’s Aerospace Forces radars had registered two Ukrainian missile launches from Ukraine’s Kharkov.. It added that the Kiev regime hit the plane deliberately, to create an incident that they would try to blame on Moscow.
This was followed by the head of the Defense Committee of Russia’s State Duma Andrey Kartapolov, who stated: “The Ukrainian leadership was well aware of the impending exchange and was informed of how the prisoners would be delivered. But the IL-76 plane was shot down by three missiles, either with anti-aircraft missile systems or Patriot, or with German-made IRIS.”
At 13:45 local time, Ukrainian ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets wrote on Telegram that Kartapolov had reported 65 POWs had been on board, but then tried to cast doubt, pointing out that Kartapolov did not specify from where he obtained such data. Lubinets would head up an investigation of the situation, along with the Coordination Staff for the Treatment of Prisoners of War (CSTPW).
UP then tried to hear more from Lubinets, but neither he nor his office, would respond. His office instead issued a statement calling on the mass media to wait for his official findings and “not to spread unreliable information. The enemy is insidious. And we all know what terrible methods the Russian Federation can use to destabilize Ukrainian society. Do not engage in provocations.” The CSTPW echoed this, but as a statement of fact: “We emphasize that the enemy is actively carrying out special information operations directed against Ukraine, which are aimed at destabilizing Ukrainian society.”
Later, at 16:31 local time, UP offered, from their sources in the UAF General Staff, not a denial, but a contextualizing as to what might have happened. It explains that Russia is getting nowhere on the battlefield, so they have turned to terror, in particular firing missiles at Kharkov. So, Ukraine must “not only control the airspace,” but also deal with Russia’s “military transport aviation. The recorded intensity of shelling [of Kharkov] is directly related to the increase in the number of military transport aircraft that have been heading to Belgorod airport in recent times. Keeping this in mind, the Armed Forces of Ukraine will continue to use measures of destruction of means of delivery, airspace control to eliminate the terrorist threat, including in the Belgorod-Kharkov direction.” Hence, they have to fire missiles at Russian transport planes.
