Kyiv, Ukraine – Two days after a Russian navy cargo aircraft was shot down close to the Ukrainian border, unanswered questions loom as Moscow and Kyiv provide starkly conflicting variations – and inadequate proof.
Moscow claimed the Il-76, with 65 Ukrainian warfare prisoners on board, was about to land within the western metropolis of Belgorod on Wednesday prematurely of a swap later that day.
It purported that Ukrainian air defence forces within the close by Kharkiv area shot the aircraft down with two missiles.
Russian lawmaker Andrey Kartapolov claimed three missiles have been shot both from a US-made Patriot air defence complicated or from a German-made Iris T system.
“Ukrainian leaders knew very nicely concerning the swap, have been knowledgeable how they prisoners could be delivered, however the Il-76 aircraft was shot down by three missiles,” he reportedly stated.
Moscow alleged that each one the Ukrainian prisoners, three Russian guards that escorted them, and 6 crew members had been killed when the aircraft crashed close to the village of Yablonova.
The Ukrainska Pravda information web site quoted an unnamed navy official saying that the downed aircraft was “their job”, however the laconic report was quickly eliminated.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy didn’t say who or what might have downed the aircraft, however known as for an inner investigation and accused Russia of “enjoying with the lives of Ukrainian prisoners”.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov retorted by saying that “if [Zelenksyy] means a world investigation into the prison actions of the Kyiv regime – then one is certainly wanted”.
Margarita Simonyan, one of many predominant Kremlin backers who heads the media community Russia At the moment, posted the alleged listing of 65 POWs on her Telegram channel.
Kyiv stated that it had deliberate a prisoner alternate that day,
It didn’t verify the authenticity of the listing shared by Simonyan, however stated that one particular person on it had already been swapped earlier this month.
Ukraine insisted Russia supplied no details about the aircraft that actually had been carrying missiles for S-300 air defence methods.
Cell phone movies presumably shot close to the crash web site confirmed the burning aircraft and traces of smoke allegedly left by a Ukrainian missile.
One other video of the aircraft’s alleged particles confirmed no traces of our bodies.
In the meantime, allegations abounded that Russia would kill captured Ukrainian servicemen saved in Russian prisons and place their remnants within the downed aircraft’s particles to “present” proof of Kyiv’s warfare crime.
“They’ve the prisoners on the bottom and must kill them, mess up their our bodies and blend the remnants with the aircraft’s particles,” a Ukrainian navy official informed Al Jazeera on situation of anonymity.
A high Ukrainian navy professional agreed.
“To show their level, Russians might go very far, together with the liquidation of those warfare prisoners and the dismemberment of their our bodies,” Lieutenant Basic Ihor Romanenko, former deputy chief of Ukraine’s normal employees of armed forces, informed Al Jazeera.
He stated that there’s a “excessive chance” that Ukrainian air defence forces downed the aircraft, however there was too little proof to show it – and to say for positive who and what was on board the aircraft earlier than it was shot down.
However Romanenko, who spent many years in in air defence forces, stated that he had personally seen how two missiles from an S-200 or S-300 complicated can match into an Il-76 cargo aircraft, a seasoned Soviet warhorse that may carry as much as 40 tonnes.
He stated that Moscow staged a “provocation” with the aircraft and can hardly comply with conduct an unbiased investigation.
The incident reminded him of the July 17, 2014, downing of the Malaysian MH-17 aircraft with 298 passengers and crew on board by pro-Moscow separatists within the Donbas area.
The separatists and pro-Russian residents within the space stated days after the catastrophe that the CIA “loaded” a whole bunch of useless and “pre-frozen” our bodies onto the aircraft to “body” Moscow.
A global investigation primarily based on the evaluation of wreckage and intercepted cellphone calls concluded that the aircraft was destroyed by the Russia-supplied BUK surface-to-air missile. Investigators stated later that there have been “robust indications” that Russian President Vladimir Putin accepted the supply of the BUK complicated to the separatists.
‘Russian propaganda statements’
One other Ukrainian analyst stated that after dropping the aircraft this week, Russia determined to start out a propaganda “marketing campaign” whereas hiding proof of what actually had occurred.
“What we see is Russian propaganda statements, an apparent information-psychological marketing campaign in opposition to Ukraine and an absence of proof of the Russian model,” Volodymyr Fesenko, head of the Penta assume tank in Kyiv, informed Al Jazeera.
Russia didn’t current the our bodies of the 65 POWs, and Ukrainian intelligence official Andiry Yusov stated that solely 5 our bodies had been delivered to the Belgorod morgue.
Moscow additionally stated that solely three guards escorted 5 dozen warfare prisoners, one thing that contradicts details about earlier prisoner swaps when every Russian guard escorted three or 4 Ukrainians.
“There are manner too many inconsistencies,” Fesenko stated.
To him and different observers, Russia’s declare have been paying homage to the July 2022 incident within the Olinivka camp for warfare prisoners close to the Moscow-occupied metropolis of Donetsk.
Moscow claimed that Ukraine launched a US-made HIMARS missile that hit the camp killing 62 and wounding 130 Ukrainians.
Professional-Kremlin media claimed that Kyiv intentionally killed the POWs who might have testified concerning the warfare crimes they’d allegedly dedicated through the 2022 siege of Mariupol.
However Moscow refused to permit discovering missions despatched by the United Nations and the Worldwide Crimson Cross to enter the ability.
In the meantime, media analyses primarily based on satellite tv for pc imagery and post-explosion images and movies of the jail indicated that Russia’s claims have been fabricated and the constructing was destroyed by a bomb blown up contained in the constructing.
Nevertheless, a world observer provided a sobering rationalization of how the newest catastrophe might have been brought on by a dire lack of coordination between Ukrainian navy businesses.
“One navy company was making ready the usually-secret prisoner swap. One other navy company in a no-less-secret mode moved a Patriot or one thing just like the Russian border as a result of it knew that one thing large and heavy was flying past it,” Nikolay Mitrokhin of Germany’s Bremen College informed Al Jazeera.
“And as quickly as they noticed [the Il-76 plane] on their displays, it didn’t happen to anybody to name Kyiv and ask whether or not a prisoner swap was within the works and will [the prisoners] be on that aircraft,” he stated.
In the meantime, a Russian lawmaker claimed that among the Ukrainian warfare prisoners on the aircraft had lambasted Kyiv’s warfare insurance policies, and that Kyiv intentionally destroyed the aircraft to warn Ukrainian servicemen to not give up.
“Ukraine created the provocation intentionally in order that its nationals don’t give up,” Russian lawmaker Aleksey Zhuravlyov reportedly stated on Wednesday.