Putin claims Russia won't stop prisoner swaps with Ukraine over Il-76 crash

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that Russia will not stop prisoner swaps with Ukraine. Putin had been asked whether the crash of an Il-76 aircraft in Russia’s Belgorod Oblast would affect this process.

Source: Interfax, a Kremlin-aligned Russian news outlet

Quote from Putin: "Will this [the plane crash] stop the prisoner swaps or not? We will not stop the swaps – we need to get our guys back."

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 had not provided the UN Security Council with evidence that there were Ukrainian prisoners of war on board the Il-76 military transport plane and rejected the demand for an international commission to investigate what happened near Belgorod on 24 January.

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