DISINFO: Ukraine downed the Il-76 using Western weaponry and struck the Olenivka prison camp with HIMARS
SUMMARY
On Wednesday 24 january, an Il-76 transport plane was shot down in Russian airspace. According to reports, there were 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war on board who were intended for a prisoner exchange. The incident raises a critical question: What made airlifting the Ukrainian POWs necessary? The answer is simple: Ukrainian prisoners of war were initially interned in the Lugansk and Donetsk People's Republics. But then, on 29 July 2022, there was a Ukrainian attack with a HIMARS missile on a prison camp in Olenivka near Volnovakha in the Donetsk People's Republic, in which 53 Ukrainian prisoners of war were killed. This appears to have been the reason for the transfer, as the prisoners of war were to be placed out of reach of high-tech precision weapons provided to Kyiv by NATO following the attack on Olenivka.
RESPONSE
Pro-Kremlin disinformation claim taking advantage of the downing of IL-76 to revive an earlier established disinformation conspiracy narrative, the alleged HIMARS-attack on the prison colony of Olenivka in Russian occupied Ukraine in 2022. In both cases, the claims portray Russia as a victim of the Ukrainian armed forces.
The downing of the military aircraft Ilyushin-76 (IL-76) and its circumstances are still under investigation. What is known is that the IL-76 came down in the Korocha district of Russia’s Belgorod Oblast on 24 January 2024. The Russian Ministry of Defence quickly blamed Ukraine for the downing of the plane, claiming that Ukrainian prisoners of war were on board. However, neither the allegations of Ukrainian responsibility nor the claims of Ukrainian prisoners being on the aircraft have been substantiated by facts.
Various explanations for the downing of the aircraft are currently being considered, as the actual circumstances still require further inquiry and clarification. Despite the uncertainty of the facts, Russian media did not hesitate to draw direct comparisons with the downing of Malaysian civilian airliner MH17 in 2014, an incident demonstrably carried out by Russian troops.
With regard to the alleged shelling of the Olenivka prison camp by Ukrainian HIMARS – the claim is part of an ongoing pro-Kremlin disinformation campaign trying to work up a conspiracy claim and confusing fact about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
There is no concrete evidence attributing responsibility for the shelling to Ukraine. However, numerous analyses have dismissed the possibility of HIMARS systems being used in the attack. The US-based Institute for the Study of War has stated that while it is not possible to independently determine the specifics of the attack or identify the responsible party at this time, the Kremlin’s side of the story is lacking in credibility:
Kremlin-sponsored news outlet RIA Novosti published videos of the detention centre, which showed fire damage but not the sort of damage that a HIMARS strike would likely have caused. RIA Novosti also released footage of HIMARS missile fragments but provided no evidence that the fragments were recovered at Olenivka.
Similarly, a CNN investigation cited multiple arms experts as saying the nature of the damage sustained by the prison camp is incompatible with the use of a HIMARS system. One expert who discounted the Russian theory also noted that “the HIMARS remnants were not photographed [by Russia] in situ, which is odd. A basic element of any investigation would be gathering visual evidence of the remains of munitions where they were found.”
A set of six experts approached by The Washington Post arrived at the same conclusion. See further debunking by POLYGRAPH.info and The Insider (in Russian).
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