Russian President Vladimir Putin said a Russian military plane that crashed near the border with Ukraine on Wednesday was shot down by Ukrainian air defenses, either on purpose or by mistake.
Moscow accuses Kiev of shooting down the Ilyushin Il-76 plane in Russia's Belgorod region and killing 74 people on board, including 65 Ukrainian soldiers captured on their way to be exchanged for Russian prisoners of war. Russia provided no evidence.
Ukraine has neither confirmed nor denied that it shot down the plane and disputed Moscow's account of who was on board and what happened.
“I don’t know if they did it on purpose or by mistake, but it’s obvious they did it,” Putin said in televised comments, his first on the accident.
“In any case, what happened is a crime. Whether through negligence or on purpose, but in any case it is a crime.”
Ukraine disputes Russia's claim that it was warned in advance that a plane carrying Ukrainian prisoners of war would be flying over the Belgorod region in southwestern Russia at that time.
She also said there were discrepancies in a list published by Russian media of the 65 Ukrainians believed to be on the aircraft.
Putin said the plane could not have been shot down by Russian “friendly fire” because Russia's air defense systems have safeguards in place to prevent them from attacking their own planes.
“There are 'friend or foe' systems and no matter how hard the operator presses the button, our air defense systems would not work,” he said.
Putin said the missiles fired were probably American or French, but that would be established with certainty in two or three days.
An aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Putin's comments were a “classic disinformation” campaign.
“First of all, look carefully. We are fighting, but (for Putin) Ukraine is doing something wrong in terms of rules and customs of war,” Mykhailo Podolyak told Ukrainian television.
“And secondly, there is something much more important for the Russians. They want to take away our right to receive missiles from our partners for our air defense systems.”
Russia's Investigative Committee previously reported that Ukrainian identity documents and tattooed body parts were recovered from the crash site.
Source: CNN Brasil
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