Russian politicians are exploiting the story of the Ilyushin-76 plane, which crashed yesterday for unclear reasons in Belgorod Oblast, to weaken Western military support for Ukraine and sow resentment in Ukraine. This is underscored by an analysis by the Institute for Study of War (ISW) that Russian officials have baselessly claimed that Ukraine shot down the transport plane using missile systems supplied by the United States or Germany.
The US think tank highlights that the chairman of the Duma Defense Committee, Andrei Kartapolov, has called for the exchange of prisoners of war – a sensitive issue in Ukraine – to be suspended indefinitely, while the vice-president of the Russian Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, attributed this plane crash leads to “internal political power struggles” in Kiev. In addition, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called a meeting of the UN Security Council and accused Ukraine of terrorism.
“Such Russian accusations are aimed, in part, at sowing discontent in Ukraine and increasing distrust of the Ukrainian government, which is consistent with many other Russian propaganda efforts aimed at weakening Ukraine internally,” it said Isw's statement on the claims about German and US missile systems was “probably an attempt to prevent Western partners from equipping Ukraine with the necessary air defense systems.”