French military has determined that Ukraine used a US-made Patriot missile on plane carrying Ukrainian POWs – AP
French military has determined that Ukraine used a US-made Patriot missile on plane carrying Ukrainian POWs – AP
The French military has concluded that Ukrainian forces used an American-supplied Patriot air defense system to shoot down a Russian plane carrying prisoners of war, an official told the Associated Press on Friday. Russian investigators have reached the same verdict.
The plane, a Russian Il-76, was shot down over Belgorod Region last Wednesday while carrying 65 captured Ukrainian servicemen who were set to take part in a prisoner swap later that day. All of the POWs, as well as three Russian officers and six crew members, died in the crash.
A French military official told the Associated Press that a Patriot air defense battery was used to target the plane from around 50 kilometers away. Ukrainian forces surreptitiously moved the battery into range before turning on its radar “just long enough to hit [the plane],” the official said.
With an initial search of the crash site suggesting that a French missile may have been used to commit the attack, sources within the French military have already been telling the media for more than a week that the missile involved was American.
In a report released on Thursday, Russia’s Investigative Committee concluded that the plane was brought down using two MIM-104A surface-to-air missiles launched from a Patriot battery near the Ukrainian village of Liptsy. Liptsy is located in Kharkov Region, around 10km from the Russian border.
Missile fragments found at the blast site bore English-language inscriptions, which revealed that the two projectiles were from a batch made in the 1980s. One piece read “Raytheon,” a reference to the US arms maker that jointly designed the Patriot system.
Following the Investigative Committee’s report, a source within Russia’s security services told TASS that it is very likely that there were American specialists among the crew operating the system.
(non-archive source: https://www.rt.com/russia/591734-france-ukraine-patriot-missile/ )
Wait... so the UKR burned a very expensive piece of ordinance to shoot down an ... checks notes... unarmed transport aircraft?
Way to go guys! Slava Ukrania /snark
Carrying their POWs being moved for a prisoner exchange.
lol, my country pissing off the yanks once more
They shot down there own people and it was more than likely intentional.
According to Russian sources it is speculated they believed there were some high ranking Russian military officials on-board who they wanted to kill in violation of international laws regarding these kinds of things. Most likely the US approved it. Maybe Russia never intended to send those officials, maybe they intentionally leaked to a suspected or known CIA mole that such officials would be there to attempt to identify the person or to try and goad the Ukro-nazis into doing this and if so it unsurprisingly worked.
That or Russia intended to have such officials and either through a stroke of luck they backed out or were called away or they got a tip from their own intelligence that Ukraine/US were planning a move there.
Once again, the US has rules for thee, not for me and my "moderate rebels".
Didn't even need to be anyone important on it for the U.S. to want it downed. The U.S. wants to fight to the last Ukranian; torpedoing good faith diplomatic efforts like prisoner exchanges makes perfect sense for them.
Is there a corresponding article from the AP, though?
They dont link it directly
Some Western intelligence assessments have suggested the plane was shot down by a missile from Ukraine, although they could not confirm the presence of POWs on board.
A French military official told The Associated Press that the country’s military concluded that Ukrainian forces used a battery of Patriot surface-to-air missiles to shoot down the Il-76, firing from about 50 kilometers (about 30 miles) away.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to divulge the intelligence findings, said the Ukrainian battery apparently managed to stay hidden while getting closer to the target and then switched on its radar “just long enough to hit them.”
Another Western official also said the plane was downed by “a missile strike rather than any kind of mechanical failure,” and it’s almost certain the missile was fired from Ukrainian territory. The official said “it’s not yet clear” whether it was carrying Ukrainian POWs.
not yet clear if the remains of 70 people were in fact POWs.. we're trying to piece them back together to check
NAFO is trying to say there’s no evidence of POWs and in reality the aircraft was carrying a bunch of missiles so in the end shooting down that plane was a big win.
Supposedly carrying POWs.
While "[The II-76] was developed to deliver heavy machinery to remote, poorly served areas".
Are you joking? A few days ago the dipshit Ukrainian nazis were claiming the Russians shot down their own plane, you know because they're just evil like that. I don't suppose you're hoping for the investigators to grab and show you 70 Ukrainian skulls and measure them with scalps just to prove the point either hopefully.
I'm serious.
Ukrainian media outlet Suspilne analyzed the list and confirmed that most of the names were previously mentioned as being POWs or missing persons, and that some had appeared in captivity in Russian propaganda videos.
“We found Ukrainian citizens in the list who have already been previously exchanged," Lubinets said.
??? The IL76 is also used to transport humans, here's a bunch of crasehs involved with it, most of them have passenger casualities
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Accidents_and_incidents_involving_the_Ilyushin_Il-76
Yes, you can outfit planes for more than one purpose and they were commonly used for troop transport.