Russia’s Putin blames Ukraine for crash of POW’s plane and pledges to make investigation public

By The Associated Press

Russian President Vladimir Putin is pledging to make public the findings of Moscow’s investigation into the crash of a transport plane that he alleges Kyiv’s forces shot down despite having been informed Ukrainian prisoners of war were on board. In his first public remarks on Wednesday’s crash, Putin repeated previous comments by Russian officials that “everything was planned” for a prisoner exchange that day when the IL-76 military transport went down in a rural area of Russia’s Belgorod region with 65 Ukrainian POWs on board. He offered no details on Friday to support the allegation that Ukraine was to blame. Ukrainian officials have cast doubt on Russia’s claims and called for an international investigation.