Moscow and Kyiv continue to exchange accusations over the downing of an Ilyushin IL-76 plane in Russia’s Belgorod region earlier this week. The airplane was allegedly carrying 65 captured Ukrainian soldiers en route to be exchanged with Russian POWs in Ukraine. All 74 passengers died in the crash.
On Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin made his first remarks on the crash in a televised speech.
“I don’t know if they did it on purpose or by mistake, but it is obvious that they did it,” Putin said. “In any case, what happened is a crime. Either through negligence or on purpose, but in any case, it is a crime.”
Putin said the plane could not have been brought down by Russian “friendly fire” because Russia’s air defense systems have safeguards to prevent them attacking their own planes.
“There are ‘friend or foe’ systems there, and no matter how much the operator presses the button, our air defense systems would not work,” he said.
Putin claimed the missiles fired were most likely American or French, and he said this would be established with certainty in two to three days.
Russia’s state investigative committee said Friday it had recovered Ukrainian identity documents and tattooed body parts from the crash site of the Russian military plane for genetic testing.
It said the evidence collected also included “documents of Ukrainian servicemen who died in the disaster, confirming their identities, as well as accompanying documents from the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia.”
Russia has sole access to the crash site. Reuters could not independently verify its account of what happened and what evidence had been recovered. On Thursday the investigative committee said preliminary findings showed the plane was struck by a surface-to-air missile fired from Ukraine.
Russia has not presented any proof to support its accusations.
Ukraine disputes Russia’s assertion that it had been warned that a plane carrying Ukrainian prisoners of war would be flying over Russia’s southwestern Belgorod region at that time.
It has also said there were discrepancies in a list published by Russian media of the 65 Ukrainians alleged to have been on the aircraft.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday his government is insisting on an international investigation to establish the facts.
At the U.N. Security Council, a Ukrainian envoy repeated her government’s call for an international investigation, saying the Russian military did not allow emergency workers access to the crash site.
“According to our military intelligence, only five bodies were sent to the local morgue in Belgorod, and no human remains are visible on videos from the crash site,” Deputy U.N. Ambassador Khrystyna Hayovyshyn said.
Russia’s deputy envoy, Dmitry Polyanskiy, disputed that, calling it “paranoid nonsense.”
Ukraine peace summit
Ukraine has invited Chinese President Xi Jinping to participate in a planned “peace summit” of world leaders in Switzerland on Ukraine’s defensive war against Russia, senior diplomatic presidential adviser Ihor Zhovkva said.
“We are definitely inviting China to participate in the summit, at the highest level, at the level of the president of the People’s Republic of China,” Zhovkva, told Reuters this week.
Zhovkva stressed the significance of China’s participation in the summit.
China, a Russian ally, has said the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries must be respected and has offered to help mediate in the conflict, but it has avoided criticizing Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
Since the beginning of the war almost two years ago, China has dramatically increased its energy imports from Russia.
Neutral Switzerland agreed to host the Ukraine peace summit at Zelenskyy’s behest, but no date or venue has been set as teams are still ironing out the details, Zhovkva said.
U.S.-Russia
Meanwhile, The Kremlin denied a Bloomberg news report Friday that Putin was “putting out feelers” to the United States for possible talks on ending the war in Ukraine and might consider dropping key demands on Ukraine’s security status.
The Bloomberg report said Putin was “testing the waters” on whether Washington was ready to engage in talks and had reached out to the United States via indirect channels.
It cited two people close to the Kremlin as saying Putin “may be willing to consider dropping an insistence on neutral status for Ukraine and even ultimately abandon opposition to eventual NATO membership — the threat of which has been a central Russian justification for the invasion.”
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov was asked by reporters about the story, and specifically whether Moscow was ready to give up its demands on neutrality and NATO.
“No, this is a wrong report. It absolutely does not correspond to reality,” Peskov said.
Hungary-Ukraine
Relations between Budapest and Kyiv have been strained because of Hungary’s opposition to EU’s financial aid for Ukraine as well as to Ukraine’s bid for accession into NATO and the EU, a senior EU official said Friday on the condition of anonymity, according to Reuters.
“The negotiation is getting a bit more complicated … the position of Hungary has not really been flexible on this,” the EU official said.
The official added there was an increasing level of frustration with Hungary among the other EU member states, which want to give more aid to Ukraine.
VOA U.N. correspondent Margaret Besheer contributed to this report. Some material for this report was provided by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.