The Washington Post: Ukraine knows Iran has shot down its aircraft, but avoids its hostility

According to a report published by the Washington Post that the Ukraine knew that its plane was shot down, but was careful not to prepare Iran at such a time, as the investigation is still ongoing and the Iranian-American tension is escalating.

David Stern and Isabel Khorshidian add in their report to the newspaper that Ukraine quickly revealed what it had about the crash of its civil plane, within hours of Iran's stunning admission last Saturday that one of its missiles accidentally shot down this passenger plane.

The newspaper explains that Ukraine published photos taken before last Friday - that is, one day before Tehran's confession - showing wreckage full of small holes, indicating damage from the shrapnel, adding that Kiev realized that the plane had been destroyed by a missile, long before the confession. Tehran downed the Ukrainian Airlines flight 752 outside Tehran last Wednesday.

But the Ukrainian leaders preferred to follow a diplomatic path cautious in this context, as the newspaper quotes the President of the Ukrainian Security and National Defense Council, Olexi Danilov, saying that his country made a strategic decision not to disclose these conclusions in order to ensure Iran's cooperation in the investigations.

Drop the plane
The report adds that US officials and leaders of Canada and Britain quickly announced publicly that they believed the plane may have been brought down by Iran, shortly after the crash of the plane, which killed all of its 176 passengers.

However, Danilov assured the newspaper that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelinsky asked them to share their information with him, and that the announcement of any of Ukraine’s conclusions in this context was postponed, adding, “We reached this conclusion before the Americans and the Canadians.”

The newspaper quotes Danilov as saying that Ukraine wants its investigators to collect conclusive evidence on their part, adding that Ukrainian officials are eager to avoid sharp criticism of Iran during this time, in order to ensure its cooperation in the investigation.

The report indicates that the Ukrainian President Zelinsky found himself after the crash of the plane, stuck between the United States and Iran, in the wake of the repercussions of the killing of an American plane, the march of the former Quds Force commander, General Qassem Soleimani, earlier this month.