The ICR confirmed that an Il-76 in the Belgorod region was shot down from a Patriot air defense system
Investigators have established the type of weapon with which the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) shot down an Il-76 military transport aircraft in the sky over the Belgorod region. The results of the investigation were revealed by the Investigative Committee of Russia (ICR).
The examination established that the Il-76 was shot down by a MIM-104A anti-aircraft guided missile from the US-made Patriot anti-aircraft missile system (SAM), developed by Raytheon and Hughes corporations. According to the investigation, on January 24, Ukrainian soldiers from the Kharkov region attacked a Russian plane with two missiles.
Russia saw US complicity in the crash of Il-76
116 fragments of cases and mechanisms of two missiles with inscriptions and markings in English were seized from the scene. In swabs from them, experts found traces of hexogen with impurities of up to 10 percent octogen, characteristic of foreign-made explosives. A fragment of an American missile that shot down an Il-76 near Belgorod was caught on video.
The official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, after publishing the results of the investigation, said that US President Joe Biden made the Americans accomplices in the crash of the Il-76 plane near Belgorod. “US citizens should know where their money is going,” added the Foreign Ministry spokeswoman.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov added that the West is moving away from investigating the Il-76 crash for fear of exposing itself. According to him, Russia has publicly announced its readiness to conduct an international investigation, but the Europeans are not ready to do it “without paper.”
Photo: RF IC / RIA Novosti
Il-76 crashed on January 24 near Belgorod. On board were six crew members, 65 captured Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers who were being transported for exchange, and three accompanying persons. None of them survived. The Investigative Committee opened a criminal case for a terrorist attack.
Other countries also supplied missiles for the Patriot air defense system to Ukraine.
In addition to the United States, Germany and the Netherlands also supplied Ukraine with missiles for the Patriot air defense system. Even before the delivery of the complexes to Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin promised to “click” them.
Putin called the American Patriot air defense systems obsolete in comparison with the Russian S-300 systems. According to Putin, Patriot is a fairly old system that “does not work the same as our S-300.” He added that Russia, in any case, “will have an antidote” against them.
In 2023, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said that the country needed more Patriot air defense systems to protect key cities. He noted that all air defense systems were deployed around Kyiv. At the same time, as the American publication Politico writes, Zelensky asked for additional complexes for Kherson and Odessa.
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