Russia said on Wednesday that Ukrainian forces shot down a Russian military transport plane over Russia’s Belgorod Oblast, killing all 74 people onboard, including 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war.
The Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement that its forces registered two anti-aircraft missiles fired from Ukraine’s Kharkiv Oblast, which borders Belgorod, that hit the IL-76 aircraft. The ministry claimed the POWs were being transported as part of a planned prisoner swap with Ukraine.
Ukraine has not officially confirmed or denied responsibility for the downing of the plane, but sources told Ukrainska Pravda that Ukrainian forces were responsible. The Ukrainian military also hinted it was behind the incident.
In response to the news, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said in a statement that it would “continue to destroy means of delivery and control the airspace to eliminate the terrorist threat, including on the Belgorod-Kharkiv front.”
Ukraine’s military intelligence acknowledged in a statement that a prisoner swap was scheduled to take place on Wednesday but said it had no information about who was onboard the downed Russian plane.
“A prisoner exchange was to have taken place today, but did not. According to the Russian side, this was as a result of the shooting down of a Russian Il-76 plane which was allegedly transporting our prisoners,” the statement said. “We currently have no reliable and comprehensive information about who was on board the aircraft and in what numbers.”
It’s unclear what kind of missiles were used to shoot down the Russian plane, which was hit about 55 miles inside Russia. The head of Russia’s State Duma’s defense committee suggested Ukrainian forces could have used US-made Patriot missile systems or the German-made IRIS-T.
It’s funny because I was reading another article on the Guardian and noticed the live update blog. At that point it also mentioned Ukraine taking credit for downing the plane, now that seems to have disappeared after news came out that it was carrying POWs. Now they want to blame Russia and use it as an excuse to call for more weapons.
Yes. I’ve been watching Western MSM coverage of this. Most outlets have been trying hard to call Russian accounts into question and to avoid saying that Ukraine seems to have shot down an airplane full of its POW troops en route to a swap.
It’s so blatant. I read it and poof, gone.
If there was an exchange on the way, isn’t it logical that Kiev would have known what was on board that plane? A try at blaming Russia? Then no exchange. A Kiev Hannibal directive, or, like Israel killing the man who was the chief negotiator for Hamas? Is Zenlensky channeling Netanyahu?
If the missiles were launched by foreign mercenaries, hardly they would regret what they have done.
How would Kiev know the contents of a Russian military plane?
There was a prisoner exchange set up for a border location in a war zone. It would be fairly normal for the parties to provide each other with information that would help prevent incidents like, you know, blowing your own troops out of the sky.
No. It is extremely unlikely that Russia would give information about the flight plan of one of its major transport aircraft.
No, Tim, it’s not at all unlikely. It’s exactly the sort of thing that makes sense in the context of arranging a prisoner exchange in a war zone. Try to think this through logically.
In any case, flight plans might be able to be kept confidential or secret, but actual flights of large transports absolutely cannot be, especially in that part of the world during a war. A Russian military aircraft approaching an airfield in Belgorod will certainly be tracked by US-NATO assets for much or all of its flight and that information is likely to be shared with Ukraine. Russia knows this and knows that sharing the information with Ukraine isn’t telling them anything that the Ukrainians and their masters don’t know except who the passengers are. And it makes perfect sense to tell them that.
It was arranged in advance.
The Russians informed Kiev as to the flight plan.
This may be deliberate.
That not how combat zones work. You don’t tell your opponent the location of your aircraft. Too risky. How to get the plane out that combat zone after delivering the POWs without it being shot at?
What were the Ukrainian soldiers doing so far from their homeland that air transportation was necessary? The answer is simple: The POWs were initially held in the Lugansk and Donetsk People’s Republics, but then came a Ukrainian HIMARS attack on a prisoner camp in Olenovka near Volnovakha on July 29, 2022, killing 53 people. This seems to have been the reason for the transfer, aiming to distance the POWs from high-tech precision weapons systems provided to Kiev by NATO.
No dumbas, you dont fly prisoners into the frontlines. That’s what buses are for and prior coordination and deconfliction.
If this story is true, That was clearly a dirty revenge.
Do you have any evidence to back up this assertion or is it only based on your unhinged Russophobia?
Ukraine saw Israel gun down three Israeli hostages and said “hold my Vodka”
Figures.
“Ukraine has not officially confirmed or denied responsibility” – first they boasted about that. Only later calmed down. Lavrov mentioned in his press conference that Ukrainian side knew that this particular transport aircraft was transporting Ukrainian prisoners of war for the exchange.
Originally, they took credit.
Yes, they did.
Lavrov is a liar.
Lavrov has a long way to go to match you when it comes to lying.
Lavrov’s job is to represent the interests of the state he works for, and those interests are decided above his pay grade.
Somehow Lavrov doesn’t come across as anyones stooge.
He values his reputation over his job.
You don’t work for 50 years for Brezhnev, then Andropov, then Chernenko, then Gorbachev, then Yeltsin, then Putin by worrying about your reputation over your job. You work for 50 years for Brezhnev, then Andropov, then Chernenko, then Gorbachev, then Yeltsin, then Putin by representing their interests and their PR strategy the way they damn well want those things represented.
And by being effective. Perhaps sometimes it will be necessary lets say to be economical with the truth. But you’re not being effective if your modus operandus is to lie. The difference will be clear to anyone who has tried these two different approaches with their spouses. The only way faster to break up with them by lying is to be brutally honest.
Nice little ad hominem. The truth is independent of Lavrov’s work history.
Well, yes, it was “ad hominem” — “to the person.” Because it was in reply to a comment on the person.
Many years passed as US leadership abandoned the diplomacy and replaced it by blackmailing and PR. Normal countries still use the diplomacy for promoting their national interests by improving relations with other countries. USSR and the western countries all used diplomacy and there were a lot of bright diplomats in time of so called cold war. The professionals of those times are no longer required in US but they are working quite successfully in modern Russia. That’s why we see such a striking difference in the professional level between Russian diplomats and US diplomats (who are not diplomats at all).
What informs “their interests” are people like Mr. Lavrov who view the world from it’s summit.
He was in the cat bird seat for the most relevant period of the Cold War – the Soviets final curtain.
He emerged from the rubble to be the face of the Russian restoration and the scourge of the empty suites from the West.
I won’t soon forget his cutting Madam Clinton down to size when she rolled out her attempt at “resetting” relations.
This is a man who speaks his mind and doesn’t have to await orders from headquarters. He’s no a shill for nameless faceless aparatchniks
I only wish he would quit smoking. We need adults in the room and I don’t see his equal awaiting in the wings.
Lavrov was promoted in time of Putin. In time of Yeltsin such diplomats as Kozyrev were promoted. I think, Kozyrev is living now in USA because actually he was working for USA. In time of USSR the diplomats were working for their own country. So, Lavrov is quite consistent, the same as Putin. I think they both knew that Soviet leadership is doing a lot of mistakes but they were not in position to change anything. What they really are, we can see from the results of their activity.
Lavrov is a functionary serving a master.
That’s all he is, it’s all he ever has been, and there’s nothing particularly wrong with that as such.
Lavrov serves the State…
And the State is damned lucky to have him.
If only we were.
Too simple. Perhaps you’re being influenced by the fact that these days, the US doesn’t have any actual diplomats, nor does Europe.
I’m being influenced by the definition of “diplomat” (“a person appointed by a national government to conduct official negotiations and maintain political, economic, and social relations with another country or countries”).
I like my world better than yours, which is cynical to a clear fault.
I don’t know if the Russians are lying here, but I do know that my government has belched out mountains of lies as a matter of course over the entire span of my time here on Earth.
In additon, my gut tells me that Zelensky is a crook and a liar. I trust my gut far more more than I trust your skepticism.
And yet we agree on at least two of three things (your government has belched out a mountain of lies, and Zelenskyy is a crook and a liar).
The only thing we disagree on is the third: That other governments and government functionaries are not, to any great degree, different.
We don’t really disagree. I agree that Lavrov does as he is told. But I have also found in the man a level of professionalism that I used to see in a number of our diplomats many years ago, professionalism that carried with it the aura of telling the truth whenever possible to the extent possible, and given the difficulty of practicing the art, I find Lavrov to be a member of that class.
We used to have real diplomats in my youth, people who recognized the need to maintain credibility in those instances where negotiations required mutual trust and respect.
My impression of Zelensky’s people is that of a clot of crooks to whom lying comes naturally.
Lavrov is doing what he believes is right to do. He is working so many years with Putin because they both have very similar ideas about Russia and about the world.
So you are implying image is everything. Don’t trust your thirst.
My impression of him is he is a man of substance and character. There are such people in the world though few and far between. Don’t let cynicism distort the truth.
I find your searches for both sides at times pretty tedious.
I don’t have to search for both sides, because I know what the two sides are: States, and everyone else.
I’m sympathetic to your view which, on the whole I believe is accurate in its way. But in the world I inhabit, I often have to choose between two or more versions of events, and in the absence of absolute clarity, have to judge based on my assessment of the credibility of the various versions and their sponsors.
In this instance, I find it easy to believe that Zelensky’s people are lying, because, based on recent events going back to the beginning of his presidency, I’ve determined that he and his pals have lied about many things as a matter of course.
Why do you feel like you have to “choose” anything here? Whatever happened is what happened, all of the involved sides are confirmed constant serial liars, and nothing material has changed.
Zelensky’s just trying to “out-Hannibal” Netanyahu!
Perhaps he thinks that the more he emulates Nutty the more likely he’ll be back on the US gravy train? 😉
That is the important (and uncontested) point indeed, the Ukrainians, the leadership at least, were informed. So either a break down in communication and a conveniently unprotected, deliberately highly visible target for a couple of nervous operators or a deliberate act. (And the second plane responding by returning.) The story about the initial boasting by Ukraine and the subsequent development the story took, of denial and shifting of blame, suggests the blunder angle.
a conveniently unprotected, deliberately highly visible target
What you’re suggesting is that Russia deliberately placed their own people in harms way for the sake of what – propaganda points?
No, the opposite. It’s because it was an arranged prisoner exchange. Those wouldn’t be the type of operation some renegade commander just decides to do for reasons known only to him. It would have been meticuously planned between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators with probably very involved third party mediation. So you’d want the planes to make themselves seem as unthreatening as possible for any unit operating anti aircraft missile system. Hence no Russian fighter planes escort. From the Russian side that makes absolute sense. But when the chain of communication from Ukrainian leadership to the individual operators break down for whatever reason, you might have this kind of tragedy as a result. I’m not suggesting any deliberate act on either side. It seems to me to be most plausibly explained by stupidity rather than conspiracy.
The Shin’yō Maru incident occurred in the Philippines on September 7, 1944, in the Pacific theater of World War II. In an attack on a Japanese convoy by the United States Navy submarine USS Paddle, 668 Allied prisoners of war were killed fighting their Japanese guards or killed when their ship, Shinyō Maru, was sunk. Only 82 Americans survived and were later rescued.[3] Oh well. Nothing new.
“SYDNEY — A team of explorers announced it found a sunken Japanese ship
that was transporting Allied prisoners of war when it was torpedoed off
the coast of the Philippines in 1942, resulting in Australia’s largest
maritime wartime loss with a total of 1,080 lives.”
There were also two other ships sunk in that month with Allied POWs on. That is what happens in war. Another example is the US Army airplanes damaged the French railroad system before D-day. Around 10,000 French rail workers were killed in the attacks.
The US AF did that? No wonder they can’t win wars, they need proxies to do it for them.
Not good news for the Russians that were about to be traded.
The Russians fly a cargo plane into the battlespace full of Ukrainian prisoners without prior coordination with the prisoner exchange working group?
I flag that as BS And deliberately placing those souls intentionally in harm’s way. How sick.
But not hard to believe given similar situation when Russia struck a Ukrainian prisoner facility in 2022.
Ukraine should fly a cargo plane full of Russian prisoners near the frontlines as a tit for tat.
There should be more to this story. Im interested on type of aircrew used to fly this mission but given how Russia hides all the evidence, we may never know.
The Russian government has stated that Kiev was fully informed of the flights carrying the Ukrainian POWs. That would be correct procedure in such circumstances. Prisoner exchanges require lots of communication and coordination between the exchanging parties. Ukraine has some explaining to do.
We may eventually know the truth, if either of the regimes collapse and their files fall into the hands of someone who wants the truth to be known. But then the question will be whether that third party really wants the truth to be known or whether it wants a particular narrative served.
If this story drops off the Western media reporting, that would be an indicator that Ukraine shot the plane down. Ukraine and its Western supporters would be happy for people to forget about this incident, which most will in a very short period of time. Then the question would be: was this deliberate or somebody screwed up?
There’s more than two players here. Ukraine has been riven with factions and undermined by foreign influence.
The only relevant files are in the archives of the NSA.
The NSA may or may not have any relevant files. The Russian and Ukrainian regimes are definitely generating reams of “what we think actually happened, and how we publicly characterize happened” material.
The Russian and Ukrainian regimes are definitely generating reams
But only one of those said reams has text with dry ink.
Given Zelensky’s record over the past (is it?) five years, I would be inclined to take the Russians at their word.
The burden of proof lies with the side that has a history of lying to the American people for as long as I’ve been around.
They are trained to listen in world wide on other nations official communications.
When the Americans shot down a commercial Iranian airplane it took the Reagan people several years before they admitted they did it. You can’t trust Americans, they are liars up to the very top.
The Russian government is not exactly what one would call a reliable source. In any case, flying into a combat zone has risks.
As I noted above, carrying out a prisoner exchange requires communication and coordination between the parties involved to avoid incidents where someone shoots when and where they shouldn’t, especially if the exchange takes place somewhere on the battlefield. Nothing would occur until everyone was confident that everything was clear to all parties involved. You can be certain that the Ukrainians were fully aware that the Russians would be flying these transports into Belgorod with Ukrainian POWs aboard, otherwise the Russians wouldn’t have flown these planes into a combat zone.
This shoot down was either a complete failure by the Ukrainian authorities to do their job in advising their side about what was going to happen or else it was a deliberate killing of their POWs for a currently unknown purpose.
“This shoot down was either a complete failure by the Ukrainian and/or Russian authorities to do their job in advising their side and the other side about what was going to happen or else it was a deliberate killing of POWs by the Ukrainian and/or Russian forces for a currently unknown purpose.”
Fixed, no charge.
You are a pompous ass. Evaluation, no charge.
And you believe what you want to believe because it’s what you want to believe, not because it’s particularly believable. So your evaluation is worth about as much as you’re asking for it.
How do you know there was no prior coordination? Because Ukraine said so?
Because it was shot down, genius.
Ah ok, I guess you forgot about human error being a prolific aspect of the human condition.
How do you know there was coordination, because Russia said so?
I don’t assume one way or the other. That would be stupid.
The Russians are not so stupid to not coordinate, but naïve if they trusted the deceptive Ukrainians.
Lies as usual, DJ. All you do is lie. Waste of genetic material.
Common sense would have negotiated a surrender a long time ago. But the batshit crazy leadership in Kiev and DC is just batshit crazy. They are beyond help.
Russia Wants Alaska Returned to their Empire
They need to get AvDiivka first then try to move up to the minor leagues. 🤷🏽♂️
As much as Ukraine is responsible for the death of those POWs, one can’t help but question the Russians morality, knowing they were sending those POWs to their deaths with this senseless PR move.
I’m under the impression that there have been previous “PR moves” just like this one, so I’m not sure that your characterization is accurate.
Ukraine was informed of the flight of the two planes. (There was a second plane, which turned around.) They knew that they carried prisoners. So one of two things happened:
1. This is the result of the Ukrainian side becoming increasingly chaotic. Russia has depleted their air-defense missiles and their military is in a very bad state after all the losses.
2. Someone on the Ukrainian side didn’t want the prisoner exchange to take place, as any normalization of relations between the two nations, albeit still at war, is opposed by some in the Ukrainian leadership. A peace where questions could be asked would be very bad for them.
The first alternative is more likely, but the second is possible.
The reason why Ukraine shot down this plane and killed their own people is obvious. Ukrainian POW are well treated by Russia. They receive medical and psychological care etc. Most likely they will be indoctrinated as well. This is quite a smart, intelligent policy of the Russians, as these POW once back home will relate their experiences to others and hence have become useless to the Kiev regime, which has been struggling to get their men. It makes it a lot easier for Ukrainians to surrender, especially since they forcibly drafted. Treat your prisoners well that’s Russia’ policy.
That is simply stupid. Starting with “well treated” and finishing with “treat your prisoners well” as a Russian policy.
Russians are smart people, that should explain it to you. The stupidity is on our side.
But I thought Ukraine has always been part of Russia? So if Ukrainians are Russians and Russians are smart, how are Ukrainians stupid?
Yes treat your prisoners well is certainly not stupid. It’s stupid to deny that. By the way these prisoners were initially kept in the Donetsk republic, but were removed deep into Russia to keep them out of harms way after the Ukrain Azov Nazis bombarded the Donetsk compound earlier last year where they were kept initially. Russia carried for their prisoners. Historically Ukraine has always been part of Russia and the Russian federation inmore recent times. Ukrainians served in the Red Army during WW2 and western Ukraine had a strong collaboration movement during WW 2 (the Banderas) and had a devision of the Waffen SS. These people were involved in heinous crimes slaughtering of Poles and Jews. These are the poeople who during the Maidan Coup grabbed power with the.help of the US and U.K. (in 2014. Remember Victoria Nuland, John MvCain etc) This just as a quick and concise reminder .
My thoughts posted elsewhere:
Valerii Zaluzhnyi and his Russian general counterpart have been working behind the scenes for a peace deal. He likely negotiated the trade. He and Zelensky are at loggerheads because the general basically said they can’t win the war.
Zelensky is polling at like 32% approval rating by Ukrainians but they trust Zaluzhnyi.
This was a preplanned swap of prisoners and Ukraine knew, so some of my thoughts:
Was this to discredit Zaluzhnyi?
Who were the Russian negotiators onboard and were they the target, sacrificing the POWs for a particular assassination goal?
Were troops foreign who shot it down to accelerate and/or continue war?
Was intelligence sorely lacking that info wasn’t shared with outer reaches of Ukrainian troops?
GENERAL TO GENERAL
A potential peace is being negotiated in Ukraine by military leaders
https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/general-to-general
Joey Biden has more blood on his hands, maybe doctor Jill can lick it off.
FJB and his drug crazed buddy Zelensky!
The warmonger, genocide Joe, wants to go down in history as a warlord. Ukraine alone has him covered in blood, it was always bloody Joes’ war. In Gaza he is joined at the hip with the butcher Netanyahu.
Two slimy, cowardly men fighting wars against unarmed women and children and they they think they and their slimy IDF thugs are heroes. Not to forget the corrupt clown Zelensky, he sold Ukraine for some mansions and fat bank accounts. Despicable people they are.
Russian propagandists.
That is getting old, think of something else for a change.
Nonsense.
did you say something?
Brilliantly said, and makes complete sense. Cannot imagine anyone biased enough to disagree.
Oh. Read another reply.
Maybe the Ukrainian Luftabwehr (or what’s left of its air force) thought the plane was a(nother) Malaysian Airlines flight.