Forbes: There Are Serious Inconsistencies In Russian Version Downed IL-76
- 25.01.2024, 13:55
Napoleon Bonaparte: “Never interfere with your enemy when he is making a mistake”
Russia spread false information that Ukrainian prisoners of war were on board the IL-76, which crashed in the Belgorod region. This is reported by Forbes.
Journalists are discouraged that the Russian Armed Forces believed they could safely fly IL-76 cargo planes to the Russian city of Belgorod, located near the Ukrainian border.
"As Napoleon Bonaparte said: Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake," journalists comment on this.
According to journalists, the Russian government could not deny the destruction of the IL-76, since the crash was filmed by local residents, and could not deny that the plane was shot down by Ukraine, because one video shows a clear smoke trail, which indicates a missile hit.
Also, Forbes does not believe that the board transported 65 Ukrainian POWs for an agreed exchange, because the video from the crash site does not show many bodies.
“The evidence most likely points to the actual shooting down of a legitimate military target, rather than the terrorist accidental killing of Ukrainian prisoners by their own forces. That the Ukrainian Air Force could reach out and touch a cargo plane flying over Belgorod should surprise no one. Kharkiv is heavily-defended with some of Ukraine’s best Western-made air-defences, apparently including one of the air force’s three batteries of American-made Patriot missiles," Forbes writes.
It is noted that the range of the Patriot PAC-2 missile is almost 160 km. This makes it possible to threaten Russian military aircraft over Belgorod.
"All that is to say, the Russians should have known better than to vector a big, slow airlifter into a possible missile kill-zone. “Landing a transport aircraft in a 30-kilometer war zone cannot be safe,” the Ukrainian intelligence directorate noted.
IL-76 disaster near Belgorod: what is known
On January 24, Russian media reported that an Il-76 military transport aircraft crashed in the Belgorod region of Russia. According to Russian journalists, the plane could have crashed near the Kryvyi homestead.
The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation said that 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war could be on board the Il-76, and it was transportation for exchange.
The United States cannot confirm the information that Ukrainian prisoners of war were on board the Il-76 aircraft that crashed in the Belgorod region of the Russian Federation.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said that Kyiv would insist on an international investigation into the fall of the Il-76. The head of state said that the SSU (Security Service of Ukraine) is investigating all the circumstances of the incident, and the GUR (Ukrainian Defence Intelligence) is engaged in clarifying the fate of all prisoners.