A senior Russian lawmaker said he gave Ukrainian military intelligence 15 minutes’ warning before a Russian military transport plane carrying Ukrainian prisoners of war entered the area where it was shot down on Wednesday.
Ukraine has denied the allegations by Andrei Kartopov, a former general with close ties to Russia’s defense ministry, and called for an international investigation.
Moscow accuses Kiev of shooting down an Ilyushin I-76 in Russia’s Belgorod region, killing all 74 prisoners, including 65 Ukrainian soldiers who were captured while being exchanged for Russian prisoners. Ukraine has neither confirmed nor denied the claims, but disputes details of Moscow’s explanation.
“The Ukrainian side has been formally alerted and given full information 15 minutes before the plane entered the zone, and the General Directorate of Military Intelligence of Ukraine also received it,” Kartapolov told lawmakers, according to the ruling United newspaper. I confirmed that.” Russian party.
“We all know very well what happened next,” added Kartapolov, chairman of the Russian parliament’s defense committee.
Ukrainian military intelligence spokesman Andriy Yusov said in comments to Reuters on Thursday that, contrary to practice before the last prisoner exchange, Kiev had not received any requests from Russia to refrain from attacks in the airspace where the plane was shot down. I repeated that there was no.
At 11:33 a.m. Wednesday, the Russian Ministry of Defense released a report stating that a Ukrainian drone was shot down by regional air defense forces. Reports of the plane crash surfaced on social media minutes later.
Foreign Minister Yusov recalled a Russian Ministry of Defense report stating that Ukraine was using reconnaissance drones in the region and that Russia had launched an attack drone to destroy the Ukrainian drone. He said there was “no confirmed information” that Ukraine had attacked the targets.
“Unfortunately, various scenarios are envisaged, including provocations, as well as the use of Ukrainian prisoners of war as human shields for transporting ammunition and weapons for the S-300 system (used in the war). ” he said earlier on Radio Svoboda.
high stakes
As the war nears the end of its second year, contradictory narratives from both sides are commonplace. But the stakes are particularly high for Wednesday’s incident, which was the deadliest of its kind in Russia’s own internationally recognized territory.
Debris believed to be a missile has been found at the crash site of a passenger plane in Russia’s southwestern Belgorod region, near the border with Ukraine, the state-run TASS news agency said on Thursday, citing emergency services.
He called for an international investigation, a call echoed by Ukraine’s ombudsman Dmytro Rubinets on Thursday.
“But I am sure… Russia will issue loud statements, but will not allow anyone into the country. They will not give any materials for analysis, they will only blame Ukraine,” Rubinets said. told state television.
Russia had sole access to the crash site, and television footage showed debris strewn across a snowy field. TASS said the plane’s flight recorder had been recovered and was scheduled to be flown to Moscow for examination at a Ministry of Defense laboratory.
The UN Security Council was scheduled to convene on Thursday at 22:00 Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) in response to Russia’s call for a meeting to find out “the reasons behind Ukraine’s criminal actions” .
France, a permanent member of the Security Council, said it was not in a position to know whether Russia’s claims about the incident were true.
But foreign ministry deputy spokesperson Christophe Lemoine told a weekly briefing that the international community was used to Russia “lying on these issues.”
