At the request of Moscow, the UN The Security Council meets

At the request of Moscow, the UN An emergency meeting of the Security Council is scheduled for Thursday, January 25, after Ukraine accuses it of shooting down a Russian military transport plane, killing all passengers, including 65 prisoners of war. Exchanged.

The meeting is to take place at 5:00 pm (10:00 pm GMT), the council's French leadership announced, after a request made Wednesday by Russian diplomatic chief Sergei Lavrov, who is visiting New York.

“The fact that Ukrainians killed their prisoners, their citizens, who were supposed to be at home practically in 24 hours, is absolutely atrocious,” a Kremlin spokesman responded on Thursday. , Dmitry Peskov, for Russian press agencies. He warned that the incident could affect the continuation of the “process” of prisoner exchanges with Ukraine.

Kyiv, for its part, demanded that the UN and the Red Cross access the crash site. “I request that representatives of these organizations join the inspection of the compound in the Russian region of Belgorod,” said Ukrainian human rights commissioner Dmytro Lubinets, who said he had contacted the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Wednesday to find out if they were aware of the prisoner swap by Russia. However, he said he was “confident” that “no one will be allowed to visit the site”.

The investigation was opened by the Ukrainian special services

For their part, the Ukrainian Special Services (SBU) announced on Thursday that they would launch an investigation. “The investigation is being carried out under Article 438 (violation of the laws and customs of war) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine,” the SBU said.

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, called for an international investigation and instructed several government agencies to conduct their own investigations into the crash.

“Since the plane was shot down on Russian territory beyond our control, we must establish all the facts clearly and as much as possible,” Volodymyr Zelensky said in his daily address on Wednesday evening without detaining prisoners from his country. Among the actual victims.

Kyiv has neither confirmed nor denied that the plane was shot down by Ukrainian weapons, Moscow maintains.

According to Russian officials, 74 people died on the occasion, including 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war who had been transported for exchange.

The Ukrainian military confirmed on Wednesday that a prisoner exchange was planned and said Russia was responsible for protecting Ukrainian prisoners of war.

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“American and German missiles” were used

The plane crashed on Wednesday near Yablonovo in Russia's Belgorod region, 45 kilometers from the border with Ukraine.

Pictures posted on social media showed the device falling almost vertically, engulfed in flames and black smoke, before a huge explosion on the ground.

According to Moscow, Kiev knew that the prisoners would be flown to Belgorod and then taken to a rendezvous point on the border.

Russia says Ukrainian forces fired “two missiles” from “an anti-aircraft defense system” to shoot down the Il-76 troop carrier and later “blames Russia”.

The Russian military said 65 Ukrainian prisoners and six crew members and three Russian soldiers died.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov promised to “clarify” the circumstances of the crash, while Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin, for his part, assured that “American and German missiles” were used to bring down the plane.

For its part, Ukrainian Military Intelligence (GUR) accused Kyiv of “not informing” of the need to protect the airspace in the area and “not knowing the transport system of the prisoners”, accusing Moscow of deliberately “putting them in”. danger”.

While confirming that a prisoner exchange was “planned” but ultimately did not happen, GUR says there is “no reliable information” about the downed Il-76 passengers.

According to Kiev, eight thousand Ukrainians have been taken prisoner

In a press release issued hours after the crash, without mentioning it directly, the Ukrainian military vowed to continue to “destroy transport aircraft and control airspace (…), including Belgorod-Kharkov”.

Russia's Belgorod region is regularly targeted by Ukrainian missile and drone attacks because of its proximity to the border and response to several Russian bombings in Ukraine.

More than 8,000 Ukrainians, including more than 1,600 civilians, are in Russian captivity, kyiv reported.

In July 2022, Kiev and Moscow accused each other of bombing a prison in Olenivka in Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine, an attack that killed more than 50 Ukrainian prisoners of war.

Russia bombs Ukrainian cities almost daily.

On the frontline, the main fighting is particularly concentrated around the industrial city of Avdiivka in the Donbass (east), which Russian forces are relentlessly trying to encircle with repeated attacks.

“Sabotage and espionage groups” managed to enter Avdiivka for the first time, its mayor Vitaly Barabach, as contacted by AFP on Wednesday, “but they were pushed back”.

With AFP