Thread by @sumlenny

A technical THREAD on today's destruction of a Russian #IL76 military cargo plane, why Russia pushes the topic of Ukrainian POWs, and how this story is an impotence symptom for our Western media.
1) There is no reason to believe there were Ukrainian POWs on board of IL-76. /1

1.1) Russia indeed used cargo planes before to transport POWs to Belgorod for later exchange. Still, the Russians say, there were 65 POWs accompanied by 3 guards. This ratio is unrealistic;
1.2) The "POWs list" Russia's head propagandist Simony published in her TG channel... /2

...contains several names of POWs already exchanged on January 3rd. And anyone needs to ask themself: why the heck do I rely on some "leaked document" published by a person who is non-stop lying since years, and lying is her job? /3

https://twitter.com/RadioLemberg/status/1750150667019112592

2) The named IL-76 plane had a very strange route for an air con. I went yesterday to Middle East, and was retiring this morning allegedly from Syrian Lataka airbase, used by Russians. Not a route one needs to bring Ukrainian POWs from Siberian camps. /4

https://twitter.com/IAPonomarenko/status/1750121703768764429

3) Now let's look at a broader picture. Russians constantly lie about real events. Two weeks ago, as Ukrainians shot down a Russian AWACS A-50 plane and damaged their IL-22 flying command post, the Russians stated first, it was Russian friendly fire, than blamed UK commandos. /5

3.1.) The Russians invented a shelling of Belgorod by Ukrainian MLRS in December (debunked as a lie, as beyond MLRS range) and a Ukrainian 155mm shelling of Donetsk three days ago (debunked as a lie by local citizens who blamed Russians for shelling them with 82mm mines). /6

4) Why do Russians need this lie with the POWs? Very simple:
4.1.) The Russians are sick of Ukraine's success in the air. Ukrainians take one Russian heavy plane from the sky by another. The Russians don't want to look stupid, so a narrative "Ukraine killed own POWs" is useful /7

The same motive was behind "friendly fire" and A-50. The Russians could not let Ukraine to celebrate destruction of Russian AWACS.
4.2) The Russians also want to demonstrate the West that providing Ukraine with modern weapons is counterproductive. This is a constant motivation /8

5) Now the important part. Most Western media have taken the Russian narrative without questioning it. First hours after the crash, the message spread through the world was "Plane with Ukrainian POWs crashed", without ANY proof of that except of Russian propagandists's claims /9

I do not know what to do with this. Russia repeatedly, shamelessly lies since years, and still: a Russian senior liar in charge just says in front of a camera or tweets something like "Ukraine did this and this", and their message gets audience of billions. This is terrible. /10

6) What comes next? It's hard to say. In Ukraine, people speculate, if Russians will use this case as an excuse to "write off" died or executed POWs. This is realistic for me. One also says, the Russians can start using Ukrainian POWs as human shields at important sites. /11

In this case, this Russian message of "65 killed POWs" can be seen as a warning: "continue shooting down our planes, and we start killing your POWs". Everything is possible with Russia. What is important to remember: every time Russian officials open their mouth, they lie. /12

7) Of course, there is always a terrible chance that Ukrainian POWs were killed in a crash (see the first tweets: Russia used IL-76 planes before to bring POWs to Belgorod). In this case, it is Russia which has all responsibility for not guaranteeing POWs safety in war zone. /13

8) Until now, there are no "dozens of bodies" seen on photos and videos, released by the Russians from the crash site. The only video with allegedly a body shows only one single body, blurred, this could be one of the pilots. /14

https://twitter.com/jurgen_nauditt/status/1750188079992721836

9) Both statements by 🇺🇦Army and by Zelensky stress the same:

a. The POW exchange did not take place as 🇷🇺says the POWs are dead;
b. There are no confirmed infos that POWs were on the plane;
c. It looks like a 🇷🇺 provocation.

Zelensky demands an international investigation/15

10) After all the additional information, I can imagine, the Russians deliberately prepared this to keep Ukrainians from shooting down Russian planes deep over Russia-controlled territory. As effectively the Ukrainians established a 100-km deep no-fly-zone along the frontline /16