The French military has concluded that Ukrainian forces used an American-supplied Patriot air defense system to shoot down a Russian plane carrying prisoners of war, an official told the Associated Press on Friday. Russian investigators have reached the same verdict.
The plane, a Russian Il-76, was shot down over Belgorod Region last Wednesday while carrying 65 captured Ukrainian servicemen who were set to take part in a prisoner swap later that day. All of the POWs, as well as three Russian officers and six crew members, died in the crash.
A French military official told the Associated Press that a Patriot air defense battery was used to target the plane from around 50 kilometers away. Ukrainian forces surreptitiously moved the battery into range before turning on its radar “just long enough to hit [the plane],” the official said.
With an initial search of the crash site suggesting that a French missile may have been used to commit the attack, sources within the French military have already been telling the media for more than a week that the missile involved was American.
In a report released on Thursday, Russia’s Investigative Committee concluded that the plane was brought down using two MIM-104A surface-to-air missiles launched from a Patriot battery near the Ukrainian village of Liptsy. Liptsy is located in Kharkov Region, around 10km from the Russian border.
Missile fragments found at the blast site bore English-language inscriptions, which revealed that the two projectiles were from a batch made in the 1980s. One piece read “Raytheon,” a reference to the US arms maker that jointly designed the Patriot system.
Following the Investigative Committee’s report, a source within Russia’s security services told TASS that it is very likely that there were American specialists among the crew operating the system.
(non-archive source: https://www.rt.com/russia/591734-france-ukraine-patriot-missile/ )
I'm serious.
source
Walk me through this then.
I'm russia I'll send a plane to Ukraine with no one on it, though I'll claim that this plane is for a prisoner exchange. I know that the Ukranians are going to shoot down that plane because reasons.
What do I do when that plane doesn't get shot down? Like what do I do if it lands and the supposed prisoners are not on board?
And the whole 'this was a prisoner exchange plane' is confirmed by both sides. Ukranians said quite literally after this happened "There was supposed to be a prisoner exchange happening today after this [the plane shotdown] it is no longer happening"
Edit: Also media has lied, hell governments lie, why are the ukranians unable to lie, after they've been lying about all other things like remember the rocket that killed two polish farmers and how everyone fell over themselves because ukr said wasn't theirs and then it turned out it was theirs instead of this weirdo theory that russia was able to put an s-300 inside western ukraine to shoot at a random farm in poland to cause strive or some shit like that?
Basically all I'm saying is there's no proof (nor evidence) that POWs were on board as the plane got shot down. Therefore RT shouldn't claim that "The plane, a Russian Il-76, was shot down over Belgorod Region last Wednesday while carrying 65 captured Ukrainian servicemen".
Also Ukraine called Russia’s narrative into question and demanded an international investigation, which Moscow refused.
Based on the proof available to me from your comments, you should stretch your brain every morning lest you pull something from these mental gymnastics you're performing.