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Russia didn’t provide any evidence so that the UN could confirm Ukrainian POWs were on Il-76 that crashed in the Belgorod oblast on January 24, but rejected international investigation.
This was mentioned in a statement by Andrii Yusov, Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence spokesperson.
“Unfortunately, official representatives of the state-aggressor rejected the concept of an international investigation that would include third countries and the UN officials,” concluded Yusov.
Ukraine relied on the UN meeting in terms of hearing new details on the case. However, due to Russia concealing the real situation, the UN officials couldn’t confirm whether there were that many people on board.
“This incident is a consequence of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” stressed Rosemary Di Carlo, Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs.
Ukraine will now proceed with its investigation.
Earlier, the Commissioner of the Verkhovna Rada for Human Rights, Dmytro Lubinets, also voiced profound doubts in Russia’s version.
“According to the analysis of photos and videos that we saw, if there were bodies, if the Russians had at least some photos, and videos that they could show that our prisoners of war were there, they would have already used them. We didn’t see any signs that there were that many people on the plane,” said Lubinets.
Zelenskyy claimed Ukraine would insist on the international investigation.
