Ukraine says there’s no evidence for Russia’s claim that dozens of POWs died in a plane crash
After reports that dozens of Ukrainian prisoners of war (POW) perished in a Russian military plane crash carrying Ukrainians who were to be swapped for Russian POWS, Ukrainian officials said Russia has provided no credible evidence to back its claims that Ukrainian forces shot down the military transport plane
According to the Ukrainian agency that deals with prisoner exchanges, late Friday that Russian officials had “with great delay” provided it with a list of the 65 Ukrainians who Moscow said had died in the Wednesday plane crash in Russia’s Belgorod region.
The Associated Press (AP) reported that Ukraine’s Coordination Staff for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said relatives of the named POWs were unable to identify their loved ones in crash site photos provided by Russian authorities. The agency’s update cited Ukraine’s military intelligence chief, Kyrylo Budanov, as saying that Kyiv had no verifiable information about who was on the plane.
The Russian Defense Ministry said Wednesday that missiles fired from across the border brought down the transport plane that it said was taking the POWs back to Ukraine. Local authorities in Belgorod, which borders Ukraine, said the crash killed all 74 people onboard, including six crew members and three Russian servicemen, the report said.
READ: A plane that Russia says was carrying 65 Ukrainian POWs crashed
“We currently don’t have evidence that there could have been that many people onboard the aircraft. 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,” Budanov, who heads Ukraine’s POW agency, said.
Social media users in the Belgorod region posted a video Wednesday that showed a plane falling from the sky in a snowy, rural area, and a huge ball of fire erupting where it apparently hit the ground.
Kyiv has neither confirmed nor denied that its forces downed a Russian military transport plane that day, and Russia’s claim that the crash killed Ukrainian POWs could not be independently verified. Earlier Friday, Mykola Oleshchuk, Ukraine’s air force commander, described Moscow’s assertion as “rampant Russian propaganda.”
Earlier this week, Ukrainian officials had confirmed that a prisoner swap was due to happen Wednesday but said it was called off. They said Moscow did not ask for any specific stretch of airspace to be kept safe for a certain length of time, as it has for past prisoner exchanges, the AP said.
