A day after a Russian military plane supposedly transporting Ukrainian POWs went down in flames in the border region of Belgorod, both sides seemed to agree on only one thing: that it was no accident.
Ukrainian authorities have not ruled out that dozens of prisoners may have been on board the doomed Il-76 when it crashed—or was shot down—in the Belgorod region. But they’ve urged the public to treat Moscow’s claim that 65 Ukrainians were killed with skepticism.
“It is obvious that the Russians are playing with the lives of Ukrainian prisoners, with the feelings of their relatives and with the emotions of our society,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly address Wednesday.
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“We need to establish all the clear facts. As much as possible, given that the plane went down on Russian territory—beyond our control. ‘Facts’ is the key word now,” he said, adding that Ukrainian military intelligence is working to determine the “fate of all [Ukrainian] prisoners.”
Ukraine’s Security Service has begun an investigation into the crash, looking into whether there was a “violation of the laws and customs of war.” Russia’s Defense Ministry has accused Kyiv of shooting down the plane in order to “accuse Russia” of killing Ukrainian POWs.
But adding to the mystery, Ukraine’s military agency announced Thursday that several Russian “VIP officials” were scheduled to be on the plane for the flight but were pulled off at the last minute.
“Their names are known and will be named, and materials will be provided as part of an international investigation. But at the last moment, [Russia’s Federal Security Service] actually ordered them not to board this plane and use other modes of transportation. This information was clarified after the event occurred,” spokesman Andriy Yusov told Radio Free Europe.
Immediately after the crash, the Kremlin and its mouthpieces in the media were quick to declare that most of those killed had been Ukrainian prisoners on their way to a prisoner exchange; Ukrainian authorities acknowledged later Wednesday that there had, in fact, been a prisoner exchange scheduled, but said the Russian authorities did not notify them of any prisoners being transported by air in the Belgorod region.
“The Ukrainian side was not notified of the need to ensure the security of airspace in the region of Belgorod for this period of time, as has been done in the past,” Ukraine’s military intelligence agency said in a statement.
A list of prisoners supposedly on board the plane shared by Vladimir Putin crony Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of RT, included at least one Ukrainian who had already been released from Russian captivity weeks earlier.
Likewise, Ukrainian authorities have cast doubt on the claim that 65 prisoners could have been on board, especially with only three Russians accompanying them for the flight, as Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed.
Dmytro Lubinets, Ukraine’s human rights commissioner, said in televised comments Thursday that there was no evidence Ukrainian prisoners were on board, let alone 65 of them.
“If the Russians had any photos or videos that could show that our prisoners of war were there, then they would have already used them,” he said, adding that photos from the scene did not show it littered with any bodies.
State-controlled media in Moscow on Thursday said missile fragments had been recovered at the crash site, along with the plane’s black boxes, which are now under the control of Russian investigators.
