Photo: archive, BGNES
The speaker of the lower house of the Russian parliament, the State Duma, Vyacheslav Volodin, accused Kiev of shooting down the plane that crashed earlier today in Russia’s Belgorod region with what the Russian Defense Ministry said were 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war on board, 6 people crew and 3 personnel accompanying the prisoners of war, reported France Press and TASS.
“They killed their own military in the air, while their mothers, their children were waiting for them,” Volodin said in the plenary hall of the State Duma.
“They shot down our pilots who were on a humanitarian mission,” added the speaker of the lower house of the Russian parliament, who said the plane had been hit by American and German missiles, AFP reported.
Volodin said that the State Duma is preparing an address to the USA and Germany in connection with the downing of the plane, TASS reported. The appeal will be addressed to the Bundestag of Germany and the US Congress, and in it will be asked to clarify what missiles may have caused the downing of the Il-76 plane in the Belgorod region. Volodin ordered the Chairman of the State Duma Defense Committee Andrei Kartapolov to prepare this address.
During the plenary session, Kartapolov also said that the plane with the Ukrainian prisoners of war had been shot down, TASS and Reuters reported.
The plane was shot down by three missiles supplied by the West to Ukraine, he said.
The Russian lawmaker, who is a reserve general, did not say who the source of his information was, Reuters noted. Kartapolov said investigations would reveal whether the missiles were from Patriot or IRIS-T systems.
At the same time, Ukrinform, citing its source, reported that the Il-76 plane that crashed in Russia’s Belgorod region was transporting S-300 missiles.
The agency points out that the accident was initially reported on Russian channels in Telegram, and then the information was confirmed by the source in question, who is from the Ukrainian armed forces.
Russian platforms reported that there were 63 people on board the plane, but the Ukrinform source claimed that it was transporting a shipment of S-300 surface-to-air missiles.
Russia launches this type of missiles against the Kharkiv region and other areas closer to the border, notes the Ukrainian news agency, quoted by BTA.
The Ukrainian Air Force has yet to comment on the crash, saying only that a statement is yet to be released.
Ukrinform recalls that during the last day, the forces of the Russian invaders shelled 20 settlements in the Kharkiv region, including the city of Kharkiv, and launched S-300 missiles from the Belgorod region.
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2024-01-24 14:02:00
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