Plane wreckage at the scene in Belgorod, Russia (Photo: RT).
It is still unclear why a Russian military transport plane crashed in the Belgorod region near the Ukrainian border on January 24. Was it shot down by a missile or due to some catastrophic technical failure? According to Russian authorities, all 74 people on board were killed.
The first images of the wreckage on the ground were inconclusive. A video showed the final seconds of the plane as it crashed, before a large fireball erupted.
The Russian Defense Ministry said the plane was destroyed by an anti-aircraft missile system deployed in the Liptsy area of the Kharkiv region in Ukraine, about 80km from where the plane crashed. Russia said radar equipment detected the missile launches.
The Defense Ministry also stated that "the Ukrainian leadership knows very well that, according to previous announcements, today Ukrainian servicemen will be transported by military transport aircraft to Belgorod airport for exchange" at the Kolotilovka checkpoint on the Russian border with the Sumy region in Ukraine.
In response, the Ukrainian military command said it considered Russian military aircraft approaching the Belgorod region to be legitimate targets, but did not admit to firing at a Russian transport plane.
The 80km distance from Liptsy to the crash site is beyond the reach of most Ukrainian surface-to-air missile systems , CNN reported. A Ukrainian defense intelligence official confirmed a prisoner swap was scheduled for January 24, but denied having detailed information about the Russian side’s logistics during the exchange. Another Ukrainian military source confirmed that the plane was carrying Russian missiles, not prisoners.
So the question is whether Ukraine really knew the time and route of the plane that Russia said was taking prisoners to the exchange site, and whether that information was passed on to frontline units across the Belgorod border.
Russian MP Andrey Kartapolov said a second plane carrying another 80 Ukrainian prisoners of war quickly diverted away from the danger zone after the first plane crashed.
Andrey Kartapolov, chairman of the State Duma (Russian lower house) Defense Committee, made a significant allegation when he claimed that the missile was fired from a US-made Patriot system or a German-made IRIS-T system supplied to Ukraine, but did not provide any evidence.
Russian plane carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners crashes
Ukraine has pledged not to use foreign-funded weapons to attack Russian territory, and if the allegations are true, this would be a major departure from Kiev's pledge.
Some observers also pointed out that Russian missile defense systems in the region were put on high alert on January 24 and that a Ukrainian drone was shot down shortly before the Ilyushin Il-76 crashed. However, the governor of Belgorod said the incident occurred in a location west of the city, at least 60km from the site where the Ilyushin plane crashed.
Another puzzling detail is that according to Russian information, the Ukrainian prisoners were guarded by only three Russian personnel on the plane (in addition to the crew). A former Ukrainian prisoner, Maksym Kolesnikov, said in a post on the social network X on January 24 that when he was transported by plane from Bryansk to Belgorod, there were about 20 Russian military police supervising 50 prisoners.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the President of Ukraine, said the country needed more time to verify the data and would issue a statement later.
To this day, the tragedy leaves many unanswered questions. It is quickly becoming another phase in the information war that has become so common in this conflict.
Dmytro Lubinets, Ukraine's human rights ombudsman, said "information warfare is no less important than fighting on the front line". He accused Russia of using measures "to destabilise Ukrainian society".
In a statement about the plane crash, the Russian Defense Ministry said that "by carrying out this attack, the Ukrainian leadership has revealed its true nature as it has neglected the lives of its people."
In fact, a large Russian military aircraft without anti-missile defense systems approaching the Belgorod border region, which is a frequent target of Ukrainian drones, would be considered a valuable target for Kiev.
This would therefore be a flight with significant risks unless Ukraine had been informed of its purpose, as Russia claims. The Russian Il-76 was generally out of range of Ukrainian missiles. This would be the first time since the conflict began nearly two years ago that one of these aircraft has been shot down.
The crash comes as Ukraine has expanded the range and frequency of its attacks on Russian territory using drones and missiles. Earlier this month, the Ukrainian military claimed to have shot down one of Russia’s most advanced early-warning aircraft, the A-50, over the Sea of Azov. There was no visual evidence of the wreckage and the Russian Defense Ministry has not responded to the claim.
Some analysts believe that Ukraine may have re-used a Patriot battery to carry out this attack, but no confirmation has been given.
For Ukraine, at a time when the battlefield is at a standstill and there is little progress on the ground, attacking Russian bases, ships, aircraft and infrastructure beyond its borders has become another way to disrupt the enemy's military machine.
Source
Comment (0)