The Ilyushin plane shot down yesterday in the Belgorod region of Russia, very close to the Ukrainian border, was hit by an American-made Patriot air defense battery supplied to the Ukrainian army. This is what a French military source reported.
Even for the Moscow authorities there would be no doubt about the origin of the attack on the aircraft, which according to Moscow was carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners for a planned exchange with Russian soldiers.
The Kremlin - which is calling for an international investigation into the incident - accuses Kiev and speaks, through spokesman Dmitri Peskov, of "a monstrous act of terrorism".
For its part, the Ukrainian security service SBU opened a criminal investigation into the crash, confirming that a prisoner exchange was indeed planned, which was later cancelled.
(Unioneonline/lf)
