An Il-76 military aircraft of the Russian Air Force was shot down in the Russian province of Belgorod on January 24, 2024. This is one of the few confirmed data of an incident that a year later continues to be a trauma in Ukraine. A report by the NGO Media Initiative for Human Rights (MIHR) presented this Friday in kyiv considers it likely that 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war were traveling on that aircraft, as reported by the Russian Ministry of Defense. Moscow said the Il-76 was shot down by a Ukrainian missile, something kyiv has never admitted or denied. The secrecy of the authorities of both countries is the main obstacle that the families of the missing soldiers denounce in order to know what happened.
That January 24, 2024, a prisoner exchange was to take place on the border between the two countries, an operation that was canceled at the last minute. This information has also been confirmed by kyiv and Moscow. From here on, the relatives of the victims denounce that they can only blindfold themselves to clarify the facts.
Anonymous sources from the Ukrainian General Staff informed the media on the morning of January 24 that an enemy plane carrying ammunition had been destroyed in Belgorod. The Russian side reported a few hours later that the Ukrainian Army had shot down a plane carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war, in addition to the Russian crew. All died, according to Moscow. Kremlin propaganda accounts shared the list of passengers on social media, while the Russian Government broadcast a video of the emergency services at the place where the plane crashed.
The leadership of the Intelligence Services of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense (GUR) initially assured that it was a montage, because the list included names of prisoners who had already been exchanged in the past and because the video did not show They saw bodies. In the days after the disaster, the GUR commented that they were considering several hypotheses, among them that, indeed, their weapons had fired at the plane. If this was so, it was explained by the GUR, it is because the Russians did not warn of the presence of this aircraft or because they wanted to use the Ukrainian prisoners as human shields along with the transport of weapons.
US Government sources informed in February of that year The New York Times that a Ukrainian Patriot surface-to-air missile destroyed the Il-76. The Patriots are American-made defense systems supplied to kyiv. The Ukrainian Air Force did not comment on the news. The MIHR report now adds that it is just as likely that it was actually Russian S-300 air defenses that shot down the plane.
Russian war crime
This organization has been able to determine, from dozens of interviews, that at the time of the incident an exchange of fire was taking place in Belgorod: Ukrainian bomb drones were flying over this province and Russian aviation was attacking on the Ukrainian side. At that time, two planes carrying Ukrainian prisoners were approaching Belgorod. One of the devices was shot down and the other turned around, as the MIHR indicates as possible. The NGO emphasizes that they are not fully convinced that this was the case, but they do denounce that it would be a Russian war crime. Andrii Yakovliev, a lawyer and participant in the report, has defended that the case should be investigated as such because according to the Geneva Convention, prisoners of war must be in a safe place and away from the zone of hostilities.
Yakovliev has also denounced that Russia allegedly did not activate the so-called “silent mode” at the time of the transport of the prisoners, that is, it did not notify the Ukrainian side that a temporary ceasefire would take place for the arrival of the plane. This “silent mode” is regularly agreed upon during prisoner exchanges or for International Atomic Energy Agency missions that monthly cross the war front in the Zaporizhzhia province of southern Ukraine to monitor the Energodar atomic power plant. .
Yakovliev has mentioned, as an example of the possibility of such an accident, the downing by Russian anti-aircraft defenses last December of an Azerbaijani passenger plane heading to Chechnya.
Russia rejected an independent international investigation into what happened in Belgorod, in addition to providing little evidence that Ukrainian weapons hit the aircraft, something that for MIHR experts is another sign that Moscow is hiding something.
Tears of a mother
Two relatives of prisoners who were due to return to Ukraine on January 24, 2024, spoke at the presentation of the report. Both these two people and the main person responsible for the study, Tetiana Katrichenko, have highlighted the opacity and lack of support that family members face from the Ukrainian Government. The most tense moment of the hearing occurred when Oksana Lozitska said between tears that she is convinced that her son died on that plane from a Ukrainian missile. Lozitska explained that that day, at the time of the plane crash, she was at the headquarters of the Center for the Coordination of the Treatment of Prisoners of War (CH), the government body responsible for the exchange of prisoners. “Suddenly I saw those officers crying and panicking, hysterical. “They didn’t tell me anything, but my feeling is that the Ukrainians shot down the plane.”
The Russian Ombudsman, Tatiana Moskalkova, stated last December that the remains of the 65 deceased soldiers had been returned to Ukraine. It was through Moskalkova that the Ukrainian public learned of this information. The CH did not confirm the news, but was quick to comment that they had begun identifying the DNA of the more than 560 bodies of deceased fighters that Russia transported to Ukraine in November.
The MIHR report notes that scientists have reportedly identified at least 50 of the 65 prisoners as being among the returned bodies. Lozitska and Olena Tailakova say they are outraged because they have not yet received official notification of whether their son and husband, respectively, are among them. “A year later, my husband is still officially a prisoner of war. This cannot be the way the authorities of our country have treated us. We will not remain silent, we will not do what they want, we will go to the end to find out what happened,” Tailakova stated.
