According to the Ukrainian leadership, the crash of the Russian Il-76 military plane continues to raise many questions, despite Moscow having published the first images. “This is mainly because they (the Russians) did not show the field full of corpses and remains that they should have shown to assign maximum blame to Ukraine,” HUR military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov said on Ukrainian television today.
Therefore, it remains unclear whether dozens of captured Ukrainian soldiers were actually on board the plane, as Moscow claims, he said.
The military plane crashed on Wednesday in the Belgorod region, in western Russia, about 50 kilometers from the border with Ukraine. According to Russia, there were also 65 Ukrainian soldiers on the plane destined for a prisoner of war exchange.
Moscow claimed that Kiev was informed of this and deliberately shot down the plane and its own soldiers. The Ukrainian leadership rejects the accusations and calls for an international investigation into the case. It was said in Kiev that no one was informed about the transport of prisoners.