‘Russia not handing over bodies of plane crash victims’

Buildings destroyed by shelling in the Kharkiv region. Pic/AP

A Ukrainian intelligence official said that the country has repeatedly asked Russia to hand over the bodies of scores of prisoners of war who Moscow claimed were killed in the downing of a Russian military transport plane by Ukrainian forces.

Andrii Yusov, the spokesman for Ukraine's military intelligence said in televised remarks late Thursday that Kyiv has urged Moscow to hand over the bodies of those who died in the January 24 crash, but it has refused to do so. He reaffirmed Ukraine's call for an international probe into the crash that would determine whether the cargo plane carried weapons or passengers along with the crew.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the state RIA Novosti news agency on Friday that the Kremlin hadn't received a Ukrainian request to hand over the bodies. Russia and Ukraine have traded accusations over the crash, with Moscow accusing Kyiv of killing its own men and Ukraine dismissing Moscow's assertions as "rampant Russian propaganda."

Kyiv has neither confirmed nor denied that its forces downed the Il-76, and Russia's claim that the crash killed Ukrainian POWs couldn't be independently verified. Ukrainian officials emphasized that Moscow didn't ask for any specific stretch of airspace to be kept safe for a certain length of time, as it has for past prisoner exchanges.

Jan 24
Day plane carrying POWs crashed

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