Russia-Ukraine war: Putin ‘playing with lives’ in plane crash as Moscow blames Kyiv

Ukraine has repeated its call for an international investigation into the downing of the Il-76 Russian military plane on Wednesday.

The country’s ombudsman told national television he would write to the United Nations and the Red Cross to request their involvement.

“We demand a recognised international investigation,” Dmytro Lubinets said.

Ukraine has opened a war crimes investigation into the downing of the Russian Il-76 transport plane on Wednesday.

The SBU security service told the RBC-Ukraine news agency that it had commenced “criminal proceedings” as part of the enquiry and was assessing the circumstances of the crash.

“The Security Service of Ukraine has opened criminal proceedings into the crash of the Russian Aerospace Forces Il-76 aircraft in the Belgorod region,” it said.

“The investigation is being carried out under Article 438 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (violation of the laws and customs of war).”

Three major Ukrainian state organisations reported cyberattacks or problems with their information resources on Thursday,

Ukraine’s state-run energy company Naftogaz said one of the data centres had been hit by a “large-scale cyberattack.”

“Our websites and call centre are currently down,” it said on the Telegram messaging app.

Ukrainian national postal service Ukrposhta reported a “significant technical failure” in its IT systems.

“Last night there was an attack on the information infrastructure of our partners,” Ukrposhta head Ihor Smeliansky said on Telegram.

The company said its specialists were working to fix the problem and restore full operation.

Ukrtransbezpeka, a state transport safety agency, which maintains the border crossing system for Ukrainian drivers, also reported problems with its data centre.

Ukrainian resources are often the target of cyber attacks, which authorities blame on Russia, which invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

Last month, services of Ukraine’s biggest mobile operator Kyivstar, were knocked out after hackers used an employee’s compromised account to carry out the attack.

Russia and Ukraine will continue exchanging prisoners of war despite the downing of a Russian military plane, the Interfax news agency cited Russian lawmaker Andrei Kartapolov as saying.

Kartapolov said Russia would talk with “even the devil” to bring back its captured soldiers, Interfax said.

Moscow has accused Kyiv of shooting down the plane which it said carried 65 Ukrainian prisoners. Ukraine did not directly confirm it had shot down the plane and challenged key parts of Moscow’s narrative.

Both black boxes have been recovered from a Russian military transport plane that crashed in the Belgorod region near the Ukraine border, the RIA news agency reported on Thursday, citing rescue services.

Russia says Ukraine downed the plane which it says was carrying Ukrainian prisoners of war for a swap. Ukraine has not confirmed or denied that it hit the plane.

Volodymyr Zelensky said it was clear the Kremlin was deliberately playing with the emotions of Ukrainians after it claimed 65 PoWs died in a plane crash.

Nato has begun its largest war drills in nearly 40 years in a a move designed to show the “unity” and “strength” of the Western alliance.

Some 90,000 troops are due to join the Steadfast Defender 2024 drills that will run through May, the alliance’s top commander Chris Cavoli said.

More than 50 ships from aircraft carriers to destroyers will take part, as well as more than 80 fighter jets, helicopters and drones and at least 1,100 combat vehicles including 133 tanks and 533 infantry fighting vehicles.

NATO did not mention Russia by name in its announcement. But its top strategic document identifies Russia as the most significant and direct threat to NATO members’ security.

“Steadfast Defender 2024 will demonstrate NATO’s ability to rapidly deploy forces from North America and other parts of the alliance to reinforce the defence of Europe,” NATO said.

Russia launched 14 attack drones and five missiles at Ukraine overnight, Ukraine’s air force said, with air defence systems destroying 11 of the drones.

Odesa regional Governor Oleh Kiper said on Telegram that two people were injured during the attack on the Black Sea port city.

“Despite the effective and fruitful work of air defence to repel enemy attacks, unfortunately, an industrial facility was hit in Odesa, and residential buildings and civilian infrastructure were damaged,” Kiper said.

Britain has offered Germany a swap of cruise missiles that could allow the German government a way to overcome concerns over a suggested delivery of missiles to Ukraine, Germen newspaper Handelsblatt reported on Wednesday.

Kyiv has been pushing Berlin to supply its Taurus missiles, which could give Ukraine the ability to cause significant damage deeper within Russian-occupied territory, but the German government has remained hesitant out of concern that could trigger an international escalation of the conflict.

The paper cited government and diplomatic sources as saying that the British government has proposed to Berlin several weeks ago that it could export Storm Shadow cruise missiles to Ukraine and, in turn, receive the German Taurus missiles.

The office of German chancellor Olaf Scholz has been analysing this proposal, the report added.

The German government declined to comment.

A person familiar with the negotiations said that the proposed swap could potentially find support in Berlin.

The German government has repeatedly said it will only act in concert with Washington on arms deliveries to Ukraine.

Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Vladimir Putin of playing with the emotions of the Ukrainian prisoners of war after a Russian military transport plane with 65 captured Ukrainian soldiers was shot down, killing all of them.

“It is clear that the Russians are playing with the lives of Ukrainian prisoners, the feelings of their loved ones and the emotions of our society,” Mr Zelensky said in his evening address.

The Ukrainian war-time president said the facts concerned with the plane downed on Russian territory must be presented.

“All clear facts must be established. To the extent possible, given that the aircraft crashed on Russian territory – beyond our control. ‘Facts’ is the key word now,” he said, without directly confirming who shot down the plane.

Ukraine’s GUR military intelligence wing said the country was not alerted about ensuring airspace security like in previous swaps, or the information of what transport will be used and which routes will be taken. No reliable information about who was on the downed plane was shared with Ukraine, officials said.

“On this basis, we may be talking about planned and deliberate actions by Russia to destabilise the situation in Ukraine and weaken international support for our state,” GUR said in a statement on Telegram.