shortly after john kirby's statement , ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy published his daily address. in it, he announced that he had summoned defense minister rustem umerov, commander-in-chief of the armed forces valery zaluzhny, chief of the general staff serhiy shaptala, as well as the heads of the gur and sbu, kyril budanov and vasyl malyuk, for a report. it is necessary to establish all the clear facts as much as possible, given what happened. of the plane happened on russian territory beyond our control. facts are the key word now. i listened with my head and general staff for the use of air forces. gur is engaged in finding out the fate of all prisoners. the security service of ukraine is investigating all the circumstances. i instructed the minister of foreign affairs of ukraine to inform partners about the data available in ukraine. our state will insist on an international investigation. one of the first messages.

after the crash of the il-76, the ukrainian media reported that the plane allegedly carried s-300 missiles. already today, the representative of gurmo, andriy yusov, said in a comment to radio liberty that the russian side could use ukrainian prisoners of war as human shields. gur does not rule out that missiles and people could have been on board, but only an international investigation will be able to find out all the circumstances of the events. of course, all these exchanges take place. a regime of silence is officially ensured on the ukrainian side, and that's all, all the necessary measures were carried out and implemented, this time the aggressor state did not make such requests either in writing or verbally, it is clear that it is not the videos published by russian propagandists, we do not observe e remains bodies, nor other points that actually point to their version of events, also from... it is known, this

is already from intelligence data, in particular, that as of yesterday, only five bodies got to the belgorod morgue, well, actually, this number corresponds to the number of personnel of the crew of the same il-76m military aircraft, which is part of the russian air force . doubts about the presence of ukrainian prisoners of war on the plane are also expressed by the ukrainian shoemaker. dmytro lubinets. on the air of the telethon, he stated that according to the geneva convention, everything the responsibility for the life and health of prisoners of war lies with the country that holds them captive, i.e. russia. even if this exchange was planned, the russian federation should have informed icc representatives that they would be transporting prisoners of war. and thus all the legal work is done to ensure. find

decent transportation conditions there, as well as safety during this route. the minister of foreign affairs of russia serhiy lavrov demanded to appoint an urgent meeting of the un security council as soon as possible. instead of an exchange took place, the ukrainian side from the district in the kharkiv region struck the plane with anti-aircraft missiles, which became fatal. we have already initiated an urgent meeting of the un security council. time and we very much count on the fact that the french presidency will conscientiously fulfill its duties and appoint such a meeting as soon as possible. but france, the country that currently chairs the un security council, scheduled a meeting only a day and a half after the incident, that is, at 12 midnight on january 26 kyiv time. as of today at 18 o'clock the latest news on all communication channels of volodymyr zelenskyi - this evening address, in which he will publish. his reaction

to the plane crash near belgorod. today , january 25, the president of ukraine volodymyr zelensky celebrates his birthday, but due to the fall of il-76, he forbade the appointment of meetings to congratulate him. this was reported by the ukrainian edition of rbc ukraine with reference to sources in the president's office. according to them, the president also canceled his trip to the central regions. olga armyanyshina, radio liberty. i i just want to add here that during the day radio svoboda asked for comments from absolutely all structures and officials who can shed light and comment on this whole story. we appealed to the ministry of defense, we appealed to the spokesman of the air force, we also appealed to the adviser of the office of the president's head mykhailo podoliak, we also appealed to the intelligence department, and it was andriy yusov who gave his comment today, and we, of course, as soon as the information is available.. .we will promptly

inform you about what actually could happen and what consequences it all can have. i will only add that today the russian pro-kremlin edition. news with reference to a representative of the emergency services reported that at the crash site of the il-76 plane , a black box was found, yes black boxes, and now they have already been handed over to the investigators. the day before, we discussed this topic with a military man, with a military expert, and he talked about the fact that, well, for now, he talked about the fact that there is no certainty that, of course, russia will allow an independent to the disaster site. investigative independent experts, but at least, if even russian dependent , so to speak, experts will give some comments on this topic, well, at least something will be able to be analyzed, right now there is very, very little information, and oleksandr kovalenko, the group's military and political commentator , joins our broadcast

information resistance, are you with us, are you not, is it possible for us to be in touch with you, good evening, good evening, oleksandr, i started with the fact that... ala the message of the french tv channel, they refer on anonymous sources and write that was the plane shot down by a missile of the american patriot system, which is used by the ukrainian military, or are there any signs at all, at least the slightest , that would either confirm or refute this version? i can only say that this man was indeed killed by a dynite guided missile, a dynite missile complex of the anti-pov system. and this is what we can say, draw such conclusions precisely from the damage that was recorded on the fuselage of this aircraft during the few videos that got to open sources, there ah, exactly the damage that was recorded on these videos, they claim,

they confirm the very fact of the use of this type of day-guided missiles, but another question is whether this missile was from the paatriot air defense system. or it could have been a soviet-type missile, because, in principle , any other missile could have left such damage, so we draw the appropriate conclusions from this, until there is an official statement from the air force, the armed forces of ukraine, to say that this it was the patriot air defense system, well, it's a bit of a rush of events, huh, by the way, well you must be an expert. also from information technologies, apparently, they also drew attention to the fact that ukraine, the ukrainian side, at least the air force and the general staff almost do not comment on this, does it not seem strange to you , is this a normal story, because there is nothing

to comment on yet, and this is a normal story , because if you comment on an event, you must first collect all the information about what happened, and what the result was, and many other things, which is why we saw that statements from, well, directly from village structures, from gurmo, from official officials , they there were not so many, they did not have so much information, any data, because if we are talking about the informational and psychological special operation that was launched by the a... russians after this l-76 was shot down, then it was necessary to find out a lot facts, many points, because we remember that in the first minutes, when the il-76 was shot down, the narrative was spread in the russian information network that it was

their air defense that worked, after that they very quickly changed the general context and started to tell completely different. er provide at all other information, in addition, using a narrative, allegedly on board this very plane , there were allegedly prisoners of war, and precisely because of this it is necessary to find out everything, to establish and put all the dots on the right and after that to issue complete information that is reliable, without any conspiracy or any there are facts that are not completely one hundred percent. while the russian side officially claimed that there were 65 prisoners of war on board the plane, human rights commissioner dmytro lubinets stated that there are currently no signs that indicated that there were dozens of people on board, but taking into account the photos

and videos from the scene that are already on the internet, and taking into account the statements of both sides, is it possible to draw any preliminary conclusions about how many how many people were on board anyway, and is there even the slightest indication that there were many people, 60, 65, 70, well, because there were still crew members, no, i didn't. opportunities to draw the following conclusions based on the information, data, videos, photos that are available in open sources, that there were many people on board, everything was verified on these video and photo materials, three bodies, and two bodies in the field, one body in the fuselage fragments, and two bodies that were recorded in the field, they are not far from... the remains of the fuselage, which are very similar to the elements of the cabin.

while the plane itself was falling, we saw that some part of it separated from it and fell separately, and it is not excluded, we do not exclude that it could be the cockpit with two pilots, that is why they were scattered on the ground, and the other pilots remained in the remains of the cabin, and in fact, that's how they fell to the ground, and... in general, if there were really dozens of people on board this plane, then the whole field should have been littered with the dead, but this was not the case, even if we compare it with the mh17 disaster, which is also was due to the use of the buko air defense system by the russians, and let's compare the field that was littered almost entirely with the victims of this terrorist attack, and even... even if you compare it with the fall of yevhen

prigozhin's business jet, which happened recently, this was in the summer, and then this a much smaller plane than the il-76, there were much fewer people on it board, but even from the first frames, photos and videos from the scene of this disaster , the bodies of the dead were already recorded, in this case we do not actually record them, that is, only some isolated cases, and what can we draw from this... preliminary conclusions, i made this conclusion yesterday, it is a fake, and i made this conclusion not only from the photo and video, but there are many other points that, to put it mildly, do not confirm the version of the ministry of defense of the russian federation, first of all, the plane itself , he didn't board, he went to belgrade, he flew away, that is, how you can bring prisoners of war for exchange. if you leave this city, where from where do they go on to exchange to

the border with ukraine, that is, this is the first moment, the second moment, please tell me, and this is already verified information, absolutely confirmed by independent sources, that he actually flew away, and not flew in, so on the flight radar it was all observed exactly his direction of flight, as well as the analytical approach, they established that... the direction of the flight, it was precisely the departure from belgorod, not the arrival. ugh. and the second fact, this already applies directly to the very strange events with the convoy. 65 prisoners of war, and only three escorts, this is a violation of order number 140 of 2006 in russia regarding escorting. and according to this order, if it is a regular convoy. and there is a reinforced convoy, if we are talking about an ordinary convoy, then

25 convoys should have been allocated for 65 people and directly the head of the convoy, an officer not lower than the middle rank, we see all that in the statements of the ministry of defense of the russian federation three escort, well, this is illogical, especially considering the fact that airplanes are the most dangerous transport for escorting. and there is especially increased attention precisely to the fact that there were enough security measures, because the bund on the plane is actually either the hijacking of this plane, or it can be an uncontrolled act of terrorism, that is, the fall of the plane even within the city limits, so special attention is paid to this , there are only three escorts. i want to say that maksym kolesnikov, who was a former person, drew attention to this detail the day before on our broadcast. in a former prisoner of war and he spent quite a lot of time in captivity and he also noticed that when they

were delivered on the same plane for exchange, he said that there were much more escorts, not three, and he also drew our attention to this attention eh, then one more question, look, the representative of the intelligence andriy yusov, he assumed that there were s300 missiles on board, several or one, and do you see any signs that these missiles could really be there and maybe, if not people, then ... rockets were transported, or perhaps both people and rockets, and missiles, and again, if they were there, maybe they should have or shouldn't have detonated in the air, or already detonated on the ground, can we have something... about that, something about that now, and make some preliminary conclusions about this theory? yes, let's definitely say so, the information that this plane was carrying missiles appeared almost on the same day when it fell, and that it was carrying missiles, fueled missiles to the s300, and

the explosion itself, it was quite powerful, but here... it should be noted that ill-76 is the plane that is fueled on board, it has a large enough amount of aviation kerosene, and the explosion itself is quite powerful, by the way, the explosion itself, it also says that the tanks of this plane, they were filled, that is, it was at the airfield, refueled and flew away, which is why it was so powerful, if it had arrived, the explosion would have been much less powerful, because there were tanks. devastated, no, devastated, let's say, up to 30%, 25% of the total volume, and therefore this is another fact that he flew from bielgorod, and even if he was transporting, for example, even four s-300 missiles, then they would not have much

effect on the power of the explosion, because it is an insufficient amount of warhead, a warhead, so that a... this explosion was two or three times larger, so it it is quite possible that he was transporting these missiles, but somehow they did not critically affect the power of the explosion. you said that you assume that this whole story about there being military personnel on board, that it's all fake, and it's all, and it's all disinformation started by russia. why would russia do this, because, well, they exist after all, intelligence, if not ukrainian intelligence, then the west. intelligence, sooner or later, if it turns out that there were no people there, and these people are alive, they will return someday, if the exchanges to ukraine continue, for what purpose was this fake launched then, if it is a fake? well, the situation they have now with safety in the air space is not the best, we see

that something is happening in st. petersburg at the oil refineries, something in the top is happening, we saw from... the destruction of the a50 and the damage of the il-22, we saw the destruction at once three front-line fighter bombers in the su-34 in december 23, so the russians have big problems with their aviation, especially for them it is sensitive and shameful when such aircraft as the a50, il-22 or il-76 are destroyed, so they tried in another one... such a situation is shameful, they tried very quickly to reorient the emphasis on another topic , on the topic that the ukrainians allegedly killed their own prisoners of war, they do not need to be given weapons that make it possible to reach our airspace at such distances, to destroy our aviation, because they

use it unprofessionally and indiscriminately, all this should have been built on this informational and psychological basis. special operations regarding prisoners of war, they quite cynically used this topic to cause moral and psychological pressure on ukrainians, and perhaps even internal chaos in society, undermining distrust in the direct command of ukraine and officials, but the greatest danger in this ipso lies in that more than a day has passed, but we haven't seen anything the evidence confirming that there were prisoners of war there, that is, the bodies of the dead, they are never shown to us, in general, now they talk about anything in the russian information space, but not the bodies of the dead, they said that the black boxes were found, now i can see they talk about anything, but not about the dead, that's why i have great

fears that it is these physical evidences, which could be bodies, that they are now preparing. maybe this is the most terrible development option according to such a scenario, what does it mean they are preparing? and they can prepare the bodies our prisoners of war that they have, or that they have taken from the war zone, but they can, well, let's say it as it is, they can prepare the appropriate number of 65 prisoners of war, just kill them and use them as physical evidence, uh, right away . you mentioned tuapse, just on the night of the 25th , a fire broke out at this oil refinery in the city of tuapse, krasnodar krai, the enterprise was attacked. drones of the security service, at least this is what ukrainian truth sources claim, and i note that since the beginning of the year this is already the sixth attack on oil and gas facilities infrastructure in russia, which give blows to these

objects? we significantly reduce the efficiency of their logistics in terms of providing units in the combat zone with fuel and lubricants. previously, these strikes were mainly carried out in the combat zone. in the temporarily occupied territories, warehouses with fuel and bridging materials, they were either struck by artillery, or used reactive systems of burst fire and other means, other methods of their destruction, but this is local, this is, let’s say, the immediate zone of influence to supply advanced units with fuel and lubricants, and if we go beyond that, then we are talking about the enterprise, if... the enterprise stops, then there will be no supply to all other facilities, warehouses , and so on. so, the enterprise now, which will be withdrawn for two days, for a week from

the system, from the system work cycle, and this is much more damaging, both to russia's export of energy carriers, and directly to the supply of fuel and bridging materials to the war zone . we talked a lot about what the russians have are also felt. hunger, and when there is no projectile, the gun does not shoot, the same with fuel, if there is no tank, it has empty tanks, it will not go and will not shoot, and the same with other equipment, even with the same motor vehicle, if he has empty tanks, he will not take shells to the artillery so that this artillery fires, that is exactly what we are focusing on now, thank you very much for your comment, oleksandr kovalenko, the group's military and political observer. information resistance, we mostly talked about the downing of the il-76 plane in the belgorod region of russia. thank you very much. today, the minister of migration

of the european union discussed alternative ways for ukrainian asylum seekers in brussels. well, in particular , they talked about whether or not ukrainian refugees could be allowed to stay in the eu countries as long as the war continues. reported that ukraine is negotiating with eu officials to ensure that future eu migration rules facilitate the return of ukrainians home. this was said by two eu diplomats who spoke to journalists policy on the condition of anonymity, they say that kyiv did not send an official request to the european union to facilitate the return of refugees, however, the ukrainian side, they say, exerted some pressure to strengthen the future migration rules of the eu, well, that is, the report. if the rules are strengthened, or, for example, the amount of payments is reduced, then some part of ukrainians will probably be forced to return home. one of the diplomats, who spoke to journalists, said that he expects

such pressure from kyiv to increase after the adoption of the new law on mobilization. as of last november, more than 4 million ukrainians who fled the war in the eu took advantage of the directive on temporary protection. this directive, among other things, provides access to eu rights, including the right to ... housing, work, social and medical protection. the european union activated this directive at the start of the invasion on march 22nd and has extended it twice since then. currently , it is valid until march 25 of the year. well, what 's next, that's the question, and that's what the minister for migration of the european union was discussing in brussels. how they can change actually these rules for the stay of ukrainians in the eu after the 25th year and what they say publicly in brussels. are ukrainian authorities really trying to influence the eu in this matter. my colleague zoryana stepanenko, a correspondent of radio liberty in brussels, joins the broadcast. zoryan, my congratulations, i will start with the main thing, probably what they say in brussels, is

kyiv really putting pressure on the officials there and asking the european union to be tougher in relation to ukrainians. good evening, your excellency, the final press conference is about to begin at this very moment the european commissioner for migration, as well as the relevant belgian ministers, according to the results of today's meeting, which you mentioned, and obviously against the background of this high-profile publication by politicians, journalists will ask them these questions, in particular our colleague there, a correspondent of radio liberty, so we need to find out the relevant information , what is being said in brussels right now and on this matter, and as you noted, the pressure was indeed reported by politicians, referring to anonymous interlocutors who are familiar with the discussions, but they noted how things are going in this publication that there is no language. about any specific requests, that this is rather a preliminary intelligence, a kind of research and rfe/rl's sources in diplomatic circles, both in ukraine and in individual eu countries,

confirmed that the mood of the member states. regarding the future of ukrainian refugees, here the ukrainian side is really feeling whether it is the pressure, what the nature of the discussion is, radio freedom sent a request to the head of the ukrainian diplomatic mission to the european union, vsevolod chentsov , i was promised an answer by the end of the day, and the fact of conversations on the topic of encouraging ukrainians to return today, in particular, confirmed the greek minister for migration, speaking in the morning with journalists in brussels, listen. i know about it, i talk a lot with the ukrainian ambassador in athens. obviously, when the situation in ukraine stabilizes, many of them will decide to do so, but we are here to offer what they need in the meantime. i would say that european societies were very receptive and accepted our europeans from ukraine better. there are currently more than 4 million ukrainian

refugees on the territory of the eu. legally, they have a temporary status protection, i.e. they can live here , work, enjoy social benefits , the same as the citizens of each specific eu country, well, depending on which country it is, but only this protection, as you know, has an expiration date, so-called, it comes out in march 2025, that is, three years from the start of a full-scale war, that's all, that is, the directive was calculated for three years from the very beginning, which actually regulates the status of ukrainian refugees on the territory of the eu. what's next, the european commission said about the readiness to support ukraine and all those who escape from russian bombs, as long as it takes, but what is the specific future of ukrainians, their legal right to live here, work, use the local so-called social welfare, well, this is also discussed in brussels today and tomorrow migration ministers of the eu countries, or representatives of these relevant ministries, depending on who was delegated, and the ukrainian government believe that ukrainians in the european union should

have... the right to temporary protection, today the vice-prime minister for european integration said this while answering rfe/rl's questions here in brussels, listen, the very possibility of having temporary protection must remain in any conditions in the year 25 and beyond, even in the event of the cessation of hostilities the possibility must remain. another issue is financial payments, since we are talking about a sufficiently long period of time . read about financial social guarantees that citizens have in every country, but this is absolutely not radical communication, not negative. so, the legal status that allows you to live and work here is one thing and it is regulated at the level of the eu, as an association, and quite another - it is social benefits, again the payments that ukrainians use here, and their availability and accordingly the size and set of these social goods

are already determined by national ones. that is, each country of the european union in view of its capabilities, and this is probably the topic of informal conversations between the ukrainian side and the national governments of european states. stefanishyna said , allow me to quote here, which is not a direct position of ukraine, that ukrainians should go back and therefore aid to them should be reduced, noted that this is the end of the quote and... the government official also said that this discussion is ongoing. kyiv needs, you know, its own people at home to restore the economy, as well as military service, in particular, in the eu, on the one hand, they understand this ukrainian, the ukrainian desire of some citizens to return, and the ukrainian authorities, which are trying, let's say, to encourage this process, on the other hand, they see that ukraine is still not safe, so what to do with the ukrainians who were fleeing the war in the european union,

the ministers recognize and also talked about this in the morning. from migration, that this is a difficult issue, and the solution will obviously be difficult, the search for which is still ongoing. zoryana, thank you very much, zoryana stepanenko, rfe /rl correspondent in brussels, she works and monitors how the discussion of the ministers of the european union countries regarding the support or non-support of further ukrainian refugees will ultimately end. in eu countries. thank you very much. to support the refugees so that they return to ukraine, the ex-people's deputy, her adviser to the head of the president's office, serhiy leshchenko, called the other day. in an interview with a swiss daily newspaper, he said that the countries that have sheltered refugees from ukraine should stop supporting them so that they can return to rebuild the economy. at the same time, there are arguments that it may be dangerous to return to ukraine.