Officials in Ukraine say Russia has provided no credible evidence to back its claims that their own forces shot down a military transport plane carrying Ukrainian prisoners of war who were to be swapped for Russian POWs.

Officials in Ukraine said Russia has provided no credible evidence to back its claims that Ukrainian forces shot down a military transport plane that Moscow says was carrying Ukrainian prisoners of war who were to be swapped for Russian POWs.

The Ukrainian agency that deals with prisoner exchanges said 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 plane crash in Russia’s Belgorod region on Wednesday.

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, Lt. Col. Kyrylo Budanov, as saying that Kyiv had no verifiable information about who was on the plane.

  • andrew_bidlawEnglish
    21•11 months ago

    My comment, 4 days ago:

    Does anyone transport POWs by plane? Isn’t it too dangerous and doesn’t usually require the speed air provides? They mentioned 74 people total and say 65 were POWs. Then it leaves 9 people of personel including a crew of 5 (based on wikipedia), so did it have just 4 guards? I’m not well versed in math or military logistics, but it sounds sketchy. Maybe POWs here are mentioned to make other side worried (for if they downed it, per the OP’s article) and cover it with a tint of conspiracy, while it was e.g. military cargo or personel? Deflecting the argument is pretty much what enemies do.

    I’d wait before more details show up, like satelite imagery of a crash site before making conclusions. For now this potato is just too hot.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilyushin_Il-76#Specifications_(Il-76TD)

    This whole thing is probably a stunt to be, like, haha ukrainians killed their pows!, and cover the fact another important aerial vehicle was downed. Why to do that?

    There was a recent trend of destroying standing and flying warplanes. Inverting it is a good way to mislead the discussion.

    And, once in a while, they’ve found a way to make many people scratch their head thinking about it.