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The Ukrainian Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War has confirmed that 65 Ukrainian servicemen from the list published by Margarita Simonyan were indeed scheduled to be exchanged on January 24.
List of Ukrainian prisoners of war on board the downed Il-76, published by Margarita Simonyan
However, earlier Ukrainian media launched the information campaign aimed to assure the pubic that many names from that list of Ukrainian POWs on board of the downed Il-76 allegedly coincide with some names from the list of Ukrainian POWs who were exchanged on January 3, 2024.
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Comparing the data, Ukrainian media took some unofficial list of POWs, which was shared in some Facebook public. Let’s look at the official Ukrainian exchange list on 3rd January 2024 and compare it with the exchange list on 24th January 2024, there are the only one match – POW Konovalenko Maxim. He was indeed included in the both lists. But in fact Konovalenko Maxim was not actually exchanged on the 3d January 2024 due to logistical issues. This is how he ended up on downed board of IL-76 on 24 January 2024.
Western MSM, following their Ukrainian counterparts, began to massively disseminate this information, including Deutsche Welle, ZDF, The Washington Post and the Daily Mail.
The Ukrainian mass media also started to spread information that there were no Ukrainian POWs on the aircraft. Later, the Russian Investigative Committee showed a video of Ukrainian POWs boarding the Il-76, which was later shot down by an air defense system made in a NATO country (the United States, Germany or France).
According to the Russian Investigative Committee, the air defense system from which the anti-aircraft missile was launched was located in the village of Liptsy in the Kharkiv region.
The Russian side published footage from the crash site, which showed that documents of Ukrainian POWs from the exchange list were found at the site of the incident.
The bodies of victims and its fragments were also shown. Some of them have characteristic tattoos similar to those worn by members of the Ukrainian nationalist military formation “Azov”. Similar tattoos were on the Azov prisoners of war, who were previously interrogated by the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, recording the interrogation process on video.
As a result of this terrorist act 65 Ukrainian POWs were killed, at least 12 of them were servicemen of the Ukrainian nationalist military formation “Azov”, and 9 Russian citizens were killed: 6 members of the airplane crew and 3 escorts.
Here are photos and videos of some of the Ukrainian POWs who were aboard the downed IL-76:
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This terrorist act was most likely carried out by an air defense crew that consisted entirely or partially of NATO military personnel under direct orders from NATO advisors or by mistake of a foreign crew (which is unlikely). It is an obvious fact that senior officers of NATO countries who are on the territory of Ukraine in the status of military advisors have the ability to give direct orders to specific units at the front. The development of the situation in the media environment, both Ukrainian and global, shows that it is unlikely that this order was issued by the leadership of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence or President Zelensky’s office.
