Top Ukraine security official doubts Russia's crash report, says no proof of PoWs on board
The Il-76 plane indeed crashed in Russia, but there were no Ukrainian prisoners of war on board, the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, Oleksiy Danilov, said in an interview with Babel,
At the same time, he noted that Kyiv does not know if the prisoners who were meant for exchange that day are still alive. He also said that if they had been killed, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov likely "would have already bawled about it at the UN."
Such conclusions are conditioned by the experience that followed the Tehran passenger plane crash and what happened next.
"Were our prisoners there? I can tell you for sure – no. If this really happened, the amount of biological material, namely, the dead, would be in a significant amount," he stressed.
According to the secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, the Russians would definitely take advantage of this situation and film it for television, "the field would be red with blood", but this was not the case – "they had this whole story prepared".
"We just have to wait. If this happened, believe me, Lavrov would have bawled about it at the UN, and they would have shown all this. They have nothing to show, because if it had actually happened, it would have been a completely different picture," said the NSDC secretary, adding that in today's world it is impossible to hide anything.
On February 1, journalists of Radio Liberty's Skhemy investigative project received Planet Labs satellite images from January 31, showing the crash site of the Russian Il-76 military transport aircraft.
On January 24, 2024, a Russian Il-76 crashed in Belgorod Oblast. The Russian Federation has about 100 of these in service.
The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation stated that there were allegedly Ukrainian prisoners of war on board the downed plane. Ukraine's Defense Intelligence said that they did not have verified information about who exactly was on board, but confirmed that there was indeed an exchange of prisoners planned that day, which was to be one of the largest.
The intelligence assumes that the plane could have transported both weapons and people, and the Russians could have used the captives as "human shields".
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Ukraine will insist on an international investigation. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the Russian Federation agrees only to investigate the "crime of Kyiv".
On February 1, Ukraine appealed to Russia to return the bodies of prisoners of war who allegedly died on board the Il-76, but Moscow has not yet responded to these requests.