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| Relatives of captured Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers asked not to return them to Ukraine |
| 2024-01-26 |
| Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. I don't blame them. [Regnum] Relatives of captured Ukrainian Armed Forces fighters asked the Russian side not to return them to Ukraine, Human Rights Commissioner for the Sverdlovsk Region Tatyana Merzlyakova said on January 25. According to her, the parents of two prisoners live in the region. Merzlyakova spoke about this as part of a commentary on the crash of a Russian Il-76 with captured Ukrainians on board, shot down by the Ukrainian Armed Forces themselves from the territory of the Kharkov region. “Parents are crying and asking to stay here and not exchange them. These Ukrainian servicemen were not on the crashed plane,” Ekaterinburg Online quoted her as saying. Merzlyakova noted that the region was eagerly awaiting the exchange of prisoners, which never took place due to the terrorist attack by the Ukrainian Armed Forces. In her opinion, exchanges will resume if a third party appears that takes on the function of negotiations. As Regnum reported, on January 24, the Ukrainian Armed Forces shot down a military transport aircraft of the Russian Ministry of Defense Il-76 with 65 Ukrainian prisoners, who were transported for transfer to the Ukrainian side, and a Russian crew of six people from an anti-aircraft missile system. No one survived. The exchange was planned to take place the same day at the Kolotilovka checkpoint on the Russian-Ukrainian border. The Ministry of Defense stated that the Ukrainian leadership knew very well that the transportation of captured Ukrainian Armed Forces fighters was carried out by Russian military transport aircraft, and yet the Kiev regime took such a step as to accuse Russia of destroying the Ukrainian military. Press Secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov said that it is necessary to seek an international investigation not only of this, but also of all the crimes of the Kiev regime committed by it since 2014. The governor of the Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, called the pilots of the downed Il-76 heroes, since at the cost of their own lives they took the plane away from the populated area. The head of the region emphasized that the aircraft did not fall within the village of Yablonovo thanks to the professional and dedicated actions of the crew and expressed condolences to the families of the Russian military personnel who died in the incident. |
| Posted by:badanov |