High-ranking Russian officials were supposed to be on board the Il-76 aircraft that crashed in Belogorod Oblast on Jan. 24, but the Federal Security Service (FSB) did not allow them to board at "the last moment," Andrii Yusov, Ukraine's military intelligence spokesperson, told RFE/RL on Jan. 25.

High-ranking Russian officials were supposed to be on board the Il-76 aircraft that crashed in Belogorod Oblast on Jan. 24, but the Federal Security Service (FSB) did not allow them to board at “the last moment,” Andrii Yusov, Ukraine’s military intelligence spokesperson, told RFE/RL on Jan. 25.

The Il-76 transport plane crashed in Russia’s Belgorod Oblast on Jan. 24, allegedly killing everyone on board. Russia’s Defense Ministry then claimed that 65 Ukrainian POWs had been on the plane due to a scheduled prisoner exchange later that day.

Ukraine’s military intelligence agency did not confirm whether prisoners were on the plane, nor commented on what might have caused the crash, but said a prisoner exchange had been planned for that day.

According to Yusov, Ukrainian intelligence suggests that several senior military and political officials should have been on board but were instead told by the FSB to use other modes of transport.

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  • partial_accumenEnglish
    19•10 months ago

    Can someone explain to me why this shootdown is even news instead of a statistic?

    Sure can!

    • Russia is highly dependent on its Il-76 jets, and has few of them left from the Soviet era without any ability to create more of them. So one more gone is news.
    • This shoot down was over Russian airspace, not in Ukraine, which shows Ukraine’s military reach and undermines Russia’s claim about its ability to defend its own airspace
    • We don’t know what missile shot it down. If it was an S300 missile with S300 radar spotting, not news. If it was an American made Patriot PAC-2, then that shows US support is having yet more material impacts on Russia. If it was an S300 missile spotted by Patriot radars (which we saw something similar recently), its showing Ukraine’s ability to enhance existing Soviet era weapons against Russia augmented by Western systems.

    Lots of good news in this!

    • @[email protected]English
      5•10 months ago

      If it was an American made Patriot PAC-2, then that shows US support is having yet more material impacts on Russia. If it was an S300 missile spotted by Patriot radars (which we saw something similar recently), its showing Ukraine’s ability to enhance existing Soviet era weapons against Russia augmented by Western systems.

      this is what already happened, once in north when two EW helis and two jets were shot, and once in south when A50 went down. some rumor-grade osint suggests that at least in the second case S300 radar spotted A50 first, relayed position to patriot radar, which illuminated it very briefly, just long enough to get a lock but not long enough for russians to react, and then sent missiles after it