NO PLANE ‘TRUTH’
Ukr. wants proof of ‘shot down’ POWs
Ukraine government officials say Russia has provided no credible evidence to back its claims that Ukrainian forces shot down a plane carrying dozens of Ukrainian prisoners of war, according to reports.
Ukraine’s government agency that brokers prisoner exchanges said the Kremlin had “with great delay” provided a list of 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war late Friday.
Russia claims the prisoners were on board a military transport plane, destined to be exchanged for Russian POWs, when the plane was shot down on Wednesday, according to reports.
The Russian Defense Ministry said that missiles fired from across the border in Ukraine brought down the aircraft near the Russian city of Belgorod.
Local authorities said Wednesday that all 74 on board the plane, including six crew members and three Russian soldiers, died in the crash.
Seeking evidence
“We currently don’t have evidence that there could have been that many people onboard the aircraft,” said Ukraine’s intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov. “Russian propaganda’s claim that the IL-76 aircraft was transporting 65 Ukrainian POWs [heading] for a prisoner swap continues to raise a lot of questions.”
He added that relatives of the dead Ukrainian soldiers were unable to identify their loved ones from crash site photos provided by the Russian military.
On Friday, Ukrainian officials said security services stopped several senior Russian officials from boarding the flight.
Social media users in the region near Belgorod posted videos of a plane falling from the sky and a huge fireball erupting when it hit the ground in a rural area.
Kyiv has neither confirmed nor denied that its forces shot down any Russian transport plane Wednesday. Russia’s claim that the crash killed Ukrainian POWs could not be independently verified.
Earlier this week, Ukrainian officials said that a prisoner swap was imminent but said that it had been called off Wednesday.
Zel demands probe
They said that the Russian military did not ask for any stretch of air space to be kept safe for the swap.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has asked for an international probe of the crash, while Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that the Kremlin would make its findings into the crash public.