Ukraine has neither directly confirmed nor denied having shot down on Wednesday, as Russia claims, a Russian transport plane carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war. But it accuses Moscow of “deliberately creating a danger to the lives” of soldiers by not notifying Kyiv. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called for an international investigation in his daily evening message to the nation, and the Kremlin said it agreed if Kyiv’s actions were directly investigated.
Zelensky promised in his nightly video that Ukraine will insist on calling for an international investigation into what happened and that it will share with its partners all available information about the event. The Ukrainian leader said that military intelligence (GUR) “is working to find out the fate of all the prisoners,” while the Intelligence Services (SBU) investigate the circumstances.
He also accused Russia of being “playing with the lives of the captive (Ukrainian soldiers) and their families and with the emotions of” Ukrainian society.
Russia agrees to an international investigation, but on condition that it is considered a consequence of the “criminal actions of the Kyiv regime,” Dimitri Peskov, spokesman for Russian President Vladimir, told reporters on Thursday. Putin. “If it refers to an international investigation into the criminal actions of the Kyiv regime, it is definitely necessary,” he said.
In fact, the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, visiting New York, requested an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday to discuss this matter. France, which holds the presidency of the Council, has scheduled a session for this Thursday, January 25, at 5:00 p.m. in New York (11:00 p.m. in Barcelona).
On Wednesday morning, January 24, a Russian Ilushin Il-76 transport plane crashed in Belgorod Oblast, which borders Ukraine. According to Moscow, 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war, six crew members and three Russian soldiers were traveling on it. All 74 occupants of the plane were killed, confirmed the regional governor, Viacheslav Gladkov.
The Russian Defense Ministry blamed the Ukrainian government for shooting down the plane. According to the ministry, its radars detected the launch of two missiles from the Ukrainian region of Kharkiv coinciding with the incident.
The president of the Duma, Vyacheslav Volodin, and the president of the Duma Defense Commission, Andrei Kartapolov, asserted that the missiles were Western-made, either Patriots (American-made) or IRIS-T (German-made).
According to the Russian version, the 65 Ukrainian soldiers were part of a prisoner exchange scheduled for this Wednesday at the Kolotílovka border post.
Kartapolov indicated that each side was going to hand over 192 enemy soldiers. The remaining Ukrainian prisoners were traveling in a second Il-76, which had to return after the incident occurred. In his opinion, the Ukrainian side shot down the aircraft “to disrupt this exchange and blame Russia.”
“The fact that the Ukrainians killed their own prisoners, their citizens, who were supposed to return home practically within 24 hours, is certainly a completely monstrous act,” Peskov told Russian agencies on Thursday.
In Kyiv, military intelligence (GUR) confirmed that a prisoner exchange was planned for Wednesday. But he stated that Russia did not inform Ukraine about the routes and manner of handing over the prisoners, nor did it notify the need to ensure the security of the airspace over Belgorod for a certain period of time, “as was done repeatedly in the past.” reproaching the Russian side for having intentionally “put them in danger.”
“This would indicate deliberate actions by Russia aimed at creating a threat to the lives and safety of prisoners,” he added. He also assured that Ukraine had fulfilled its part of the deal, bringing the Russian prisoners to the exchange point and ensuring their safety.
But in Moscow they maintain that the Ukrainian authorities were aware. Kartapolov assured that “they knew very well that the plane was on route, where it was going and the (Ukrainian) operators of surface-to-air missile systems cannot confuse transport planes with planes or helicopters as targets.” Russian authorities consider the downing of the plane a “terrorist act” committed by kyiv against its own people.
The Russian Foreign Ministry added that “in Kyiv they knew very well that an exchange would occur and knew the route by which the prisoners would be transported. The attack on the plane was a deliberate and conscious action.”
The commander of the Ukrainian Air Force, Mikola Oleschuk, has rejected the Russian position. In a message posted on Telegram in the early hours of Wednesday to Thursday, he called Russia’s official statements about the Il-76 a “false flow of information” with the aim of “discrediting Ukraine before the international community.”
This Thursday the Kremlin assured that, after the “monstrous act” committed by Kyiv, the future of the prisoner exchanges, carried out regularly in the two-year war between the two Slavic countries, is “in question.”
The last major prisoner exchange took place on January 3, when Ukraine handed over 248 Russian soldiers to Russia in exchange for 230 Ukrainian soldiers.