Ukraine seeks answers over Russian plane crash
Ukrainian officials sought answers Thursday into the circumstances of a deadly plane crash over the border with Russia, asking for patience from citizens as they investigated Moscow's claims that Ukraine had shot down a Russian military plane carrying Ukrainian prisoners of war.
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine called on his country's intelligence service to determine what happened and for an international investigation into the crash, while also accusing Russia of war propaganda about the event.
The plane crashed in the Belgorod region near the border with Ukraine, killing everyone on board, the Russian Defense Ministry and the regional governor said on Wednesday. The ministry said the plane had carried 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war, who would be released through a prisoner exchange. The Russian claims could not be independently verified.
The cause of the crash remains unknown, although Ukrainian officials have not denied shooting down the plane. They say they cannot confirm that Ukrainian soldiers on their way to a prisoner exchange were on board the plane.
But Ukrainian military intelligence on Wednesday hinted at the possibility of a tragic mistake, acknowledging that a prisoner swap was planned and saying in a statement that Russia had not warned the Ukrainian military that prisoners of war were being transported to the border – as it had in previous exchanges.
Either way, the episode poses a difficult challenge for a Kiev government trying to prepare its citizens for a third year of war and considering a new mobilization that would likely be unpopular at home. At the same time, Ukraine finds itself on the defensive on the battlefield and strives daily to shore up much-needed Western support.
Officials in Kiev have said it is too early to draw conclusions about the crash and that relatives should wait for confirmation from authorities in Ukraine. “We have not seen any sign of this number of people on board the plane, whether they are Ukrainian citizens or not,” Dmytro Lubinets, the country's human rights ombudsman, told news media on Thursday.
Complicating any investigation by Ukraine is the fact that Russia has most of the key details about the episode, including who was on board. Ukrainians are deeply skeptical of information coming from Russia, which they say is determined to turn the crash into a painful ordeal for prisoners' families.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry S. Peskov again claimed on Thursday that Ukraine had shot its own soldiers, calling it a “monstrous act.”
Groups that monitor Russian propaganda say Moscow is sending a message aimed at the West: that Ukraine cannot be trusted with long-range weapons. Russians posting on social networking sites have blamed Ukraine for killing its own people.
“It is clear that Russians are tampering with the lives of Ukrainian prisoners, the feelings of their relatives and the emotions of our society,” Zelensky said in his late-night video address on Wednesday.
The Institute for the Study of War, a US-based organization, wrote in an analysis that Russian propagandists “seized the Il-76 crash to sow domestic discontent in Ukraine and undermine Western will to continue military support for Ukraine to give.”
No independent groups have visited the crash site. The United Nations and the Red Cross did not immediately respond Thursday to questions about gaining access to the site.
Neither the Ukrainian military nor the domestic intelligence agency that Mr. Zelensky asked to investigate the crash had released information about the incident as of early Thursday.
“The microphone is in Russia's hands,” said Hanna Chabarai, an analyst of Russian propaganda at the Institute of Mass Information, an independent organization in Ukraine. “This is emotional terrorism because relatives and friends of prisoners of war are very afraid.”
A lack of clarity has been a hallmark of Russia's war in Ukraine, not only because of the obscurity of what is happening on the battlefield, but also because Russia uses misinformation for propaganda purposes at home and abroad. Ukraine is also reluctant to make public any military setbacks. Tragedies and turning points in the war are sometimes overshadowed by uncertainty for weeks or longer.
A July 2022 explosion at the Olenivka camp for Ukrainian prisoners of war killed at least 51 prisoners, prompting a months-long effort by Ukraine and international organizations to determine what happened.
Russia claimed that Ukraine had hit the site with an American-supplied missile. But a United Nations investigation ultimately determined that a U.S. missile could not have hit the site and accused Russia of holding prisoners of war near the front line.
Maria Varenikova And Ivan Nechepurenko reporting contributed.