Ukraine says it was not informed about need to ensure safety of airspace before plane crash in Belgorod Oblast
Ukraine says it was not informed about need to ensure safety of airspace before plane crash in Belgorod Oblast
The Russian side did not notify Ukraine about the necessity to ensure the safety of the airspace around Belgorod, Ukraine's military intelligence said, which has been done "repeatedly" in the past.
Ukraine's military intelligence, or HUR as it is known in Ukraine, said the Russian side did not inform it about the need to ensure the safety of the airspace before a plane crashed over Belgorod that the Russian Defense Ministry claims had Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) on board.
A Russian Il-72 transport plane crashed in Belgorod Oblast earlier on Jan. 24, which Russian authorities later confirmed. Russia's Defense Ministry then claimed that 65 Ukrainian POWs were on the plane when it crashed.
HUR also confirmed that a prisoner exchange had been planned on Jan. 24, but did not confirm that Ukrainian POWs were on the plane, nor comment on what might have caused the crash.
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Footage I've seen so far has had Ukrainian pows returned on busses. Are we supposed to believe that this time they decided to launch an expensive to fly plane to transport just 65 pows. Every pow so far has been returned completely abused and malnourished. Suddenly this time they pulled out all the stops? It may have been shot down but there weren't pows onboard.
Apparently, these aircraft have been used to transport POWs before:
Former Ukrainian prisoners who were released in exchanges said that they had been transported on that model of airplane, said Olha Reshetylova, a coordinator for the Media Initiative for Human Rights, a group that investigates potential Russian war crimes against prisoners of war.
(Archive link to the NYT report.)