The Investigative Committee of Russia has established the type of weapon with which the Ukrainian Armed Forces hit an Il-76 aircraft in the Belgorod region, which was carrying 65 Ukrainian military personnel intended for exchange.
“According to the conclusion of the examinations carried out during the investigation, the fragments seized from the scene of the incident, according to their design features, geometric characteristics and available markings, are structural elements of the MIM-104A anti-aircraft guided missile of the US Patriot complex, developed by Raytheon and Hughes corporations and manufactured at Raytheon.” , the message says.
The official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova, commenting on the statement of the Investigative Committee, noted that US citizens should know where their money is going.
“Biden and team have made Americans complicit in a bloody tragedy,” she added.
The type of weapon with which the Ukrainian Armed Forces hit the Il-76 aircraft in the Belgorod region has been established
On January 24 at 11:10 Moscow time, Ukrainian military personnel, firing a salvo of two shells from an anti-aircraft missile system, shot down a Russian military transport aircraft flying on the route Chkalovsky airfield - Belgorod to deliver Ukrainian military personnel for exchange. All 74 people on board were killed.
With the help of radar means of objective control of airspace, it was established that the anti-aircraft missile weapons from which the military transport aircraft was hit were located in the area of the village of Liptsy, Kharkov region.
The day before, Vladimir Putin, at a meeting with trusted officials, said that he did not understand why the Kiev regime shot down a Russian plane carrying 65 Ukrainian Armed Forces personnel intended for exchange.
“You asked: why did they do this? I don't know. I don't understand. You can also imagine why they are shelling peaceful cities: to divert the attention of their own population and sponsors from the failures of the so-called counter-offensive, to show that they can do something, to provoke us into retaliatory mirror actions for attacks on civilian and peaceful targets in the territory Ukraine itself. What are we doing? We use long-range precision weapons to hit infrastructure, primarily military, and military industry, and they want to provoke us into retaliatory action,” he said.
The head of state emphasized that Russia insists on conducting an international investigation, but there are no volunteers from international organizations.
“Officially, we ask to send international experts and conduct this analysis, evaluate the available material evidence that the plane was shot down by the Patriot system from a specific place and at a specific time,” Putin added.
Today, during a conversation with journalists, the press secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov noted that the West is not interested in conducting an investigation, during which they will “stumble upon themselves.”
“Now we are hearing voices from Europeans that, they say, give us paper - we won’t consider anything without paper,” said a Kremlin official representative. “The position of the collective West, which is a direct participant in this armed conflict, is also obvious.”
Putin stressed that, despite the tragedy with Il-76, Russia will not stop prisoner exchanges
Address to the US Congress
On Thursday, February 1, at a plenary meeting of the State Duma, a draft resolution was adopted on the appeal of deputies to the US Congress “in connection with the commission of another terrorist act by Ukraine, as a result of which a military transport aircraft of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation was treacherously shot down.”
“Deputies of the State Duma call on members of the Congress of the United States of America to condemn the crimes of the terrorist Kiev regime, renounce its support and help bring to justice the direct perpetrators of the inhumane terrorist act,” says the document submitted by the State Duma Committee on International Affairs.
Russian parliamentarians emphasized that deliberately suppressing the truth about the victims of the criminal actions of the Kiev regime is a dead end, and supporting neo-Nazi ideology and its implementation in Ukraine only provokes the Kyiv clique to continue terror and escalate violence, bringing the world closer to a global catastrophe.
“You represent the American people, not corrupt bureaucrats and military-industrial complex lobbyists. We are sure that your taxpayers are not particularly enthusiastic about the waste of their money, which is sent to Ukraine so that it will continue to send soldiers to certain death, destroy its prisoners of war and civilians,” the State Duma added.
Attention is also drawn to numerous facts indicating that a significant part of the deadly Western weapons supplied to the corrupt Kyiv regime, as a result of criminal machinations, ends up in the hands of terrorists and radical extremists around the world.
At the same time, State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin recalled that an Il-76 transport plane carrying prisoners of war of the Ukrainian Armed Forces was shot down in the Belgorod region by an American Patriot anti-aircraft missile system.
“Zelensky destroyed his soldiers who were supposed to return home, their families were waiting for them: mothers, wives, children. Our pilots were killed while carrying out a humanitarian mission to exchange prisoners of war,” he wrote in his Telegram channel.
In his opinion, American congressmen “should know into whose hands the American weapons sent to Ukraine by President Biden fall into and how they are used”: “The Nazi Kiev regime is using them to commit crimes against civilians. This needs to stop."