Situation unclear, Russia hasn't shown bodies – Ukraine's intelligence chief on Il-76 crash
Kyrylo Budanov, Head of Ukraine’s Defence Intelligence, has said that neither Russia nor Ukraine has a complete answer as to what happened when the Il-76 aircraft crashed in Russia’s Belgorod Oblast.
Source: Budanov during the 24/7 national joint newscast
Quote: "Unfortunately, we must state that neither side can fully answer with regard to what happened there.
Russia's position is clear – blame Ukraine for everything. However, there are a number of factors that are not clear for this position. First and foremost, they have not shown the fields strewn with corpses and remains, which they should have done in order to blame Ukraine as much as possible. But they didn't even do that. So the situation is not fully clear.
If it happened as Russia claims, why did Russia hide the bodies for several days and why is it still hiding them? It should have shown them to the whole world: 'Look, the Ukrainians are murderers.' But there are no bodies – there is nothing."
Background:
- A Russian Il-76 aircraft crashed in the Korocha district of Russia's Belgorod Oblast. Sources in the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine stated the plane was carrying S-300 anti-aircraft missiles. The Russian Defence Ministry said the plane was carrying Ukrainian prisoners of war to Belgorod for a swap. According to the Russian Ministry of Defence, two Ukrainian missiles were "fired", killing 74 people, including 65 Ukrainian POWs.
- Russian propagandist Margarita Simonyan published a list of the Ukrainian prisoners of war who she alleges were on board the Il-76 aircraft that crashed. Only the names of the six dead crew members are known to the media.
- Defence Intelligence of Ukraine confirmed that the swap scheduled for 24 January did not take place, but they had no information about the Ukrainian prisoners on board the Il-76. In the previous swap, prisoners had been delivered by plane, but Ukraine had been made aware of that in advance.
- Andrii Yusov said that Russian officials were supposed to be on board the Il-76, but at the last minute, the FSB forbade them to board. He said only five bodies were delivered to the local morgue after the incident. Yusov also suggested that the plane could have been carrying both missiles and people. Ukrainian Parliamentary Human Rights Commissioner Dmytro Lubinets also pointed to the lack of evidence that many people were killed in the crash.
- Russia has not provided the UN Security Council with evidence that there were Ukrainian prisoners of war on board the Il-76 military transport aircraft and has rejected a demand for an international commission to investigate the crash.
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