At a press conference on 24 January at the United Nations, Sergey Lavrov said that Ukraine had already started making excuses about the crash of the Russian Air Force Il-76 military transport aircraft in Belgorod Region. Kyiv says that it allegedly did not know about the presence of Ukrainian prisoners of war on board.
According to the Russian foreign minister, Ukraine is currently trying to sweep this story “under the carpet”. He expressed hope that the situation with the plane in Belgorod would not repeat the situation in Bucha in 2022. He noted:
“I would not like to see a repeat of the story of April 2022, when after the staging in Bucha the bodies of people whose names we still cannot get..”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says Russia has called an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on Wednesday to discuss the crash of a Russian plane that Moscow says was carrying captured Ukrainian soldiers for a prisoner exchange.
Russia has accused Ukraine of deliberately shooting down a military transport plane carrying 65 captured Ukrainian soldiers for a prisoner exchange, killing a total of 74 people.
The UN regrets the deaths of people on board the Il-76 that crashed near Belgorod, the spokesman for the organisation’s secretary-general, António Guterres, Stephane Dujarric, has said. According to him, the international organisation is ready to provide a rapporteur to the Security Council meeting over the downed plane carrying prisoners from the Ukrainian Armed Forces if there is a request from the UN Security Council members.
On 23 January, Sergey Lavrov arrived for a meeting with UN Secretary-General António Guterres as part of his visit to New York to participate in the UN Security Council meetings on the Ukrainian and Middle East issues.
