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IL-76 crash may be Russian operation to discredit Ukraine - military expert
Military expert and Ukrainian servicemen Vladyslav Selezniov has commented on the crash of Russia's IL-76
He said this on Espreso TV.
"The Russian State Duma acted quickly enough to accuse the Ukrainian side of all the "mortal sins" without knowing what actually happened to the IL-76. Perhaps, Russia is implementing some kind of information and psychological operation aimed at discrediting Ukraine and the Defense Forces," Selezniov noted.
Now there is a lot of speculation, strange and often contradictory statements from Russian top officials about who was on board the plane, he noted.
"I propose to take our time and recall the statement of our ombudsman, who said that we should wait for the relevant reports of the Ukrainian General Staff or the coordination center that deals with the exchange of prisoners. Indeed, a prisoner exchange was planned for today, but there is no other information. The Ukrainian side is now checking the information on whether there were Ukrainian citizens on board the same plane to draw appropriate conclusions," the military expert said.
We will find out whether it was Ukrainian systems that could have hit the Russian aircraft with missiles or whether the IL-76 crashed due to poor technical condition, he said.
"Literally a few dozen kilometers separate the crash site of the enemy aircraft from the border with Ukraine. In any case, we have to understand that this is a combat unit worth at least USD 27 million," Selezniov added.
- On Wednesday, January 24, a Russian military transport aircraft IL-76 crashed in the Belgorod region.
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