The United Nations Security Council met Thursday in an emergency meeting at Russia’s request, following the crash of a Russian military transport plane near the Russia-Ukraine border. Both sides are calling for an investigation.
U.N. political chief Rosemary DiCarlo said the organization is not in a position to verify the circumstances around the crash.
“What is clear is that the incident took place in the context of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and ongoing war,” she said. “To avoid further escalation, we urge all concerned to refrain from actions, rhetoric or allegations that could further fuel the already dangerous conflict.”
Moscow has accused Kyiv of shooting down the plane, which crashed Wednesday in the Belgorod region. Russia said the plane was carrying 74 people, including 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war who were to be part of a prisoner swap.
“The Ukrainian prisoners of war were transported to the Belgorod region in order to conduct yet another swap that was agreed between Moscow and Kyiv,” Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Wednesday in New York, where he was attending U.N. meetings. “Instead of this, the Ukrainian side launched an air defense missile from the Kharkiv region. It targeted the airplane and was a fatal strike.”
Call for facts
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his government was insisting on an international investigation to establish the facts.
Zelenskyy said Russia was “playing with the lives of Ukrainian prisoners of war, the feelings of their relatives and the emotions of our society.”
At the Security Council, Ukraine’s envoy repeated her government’s call for an international investigation, saying that because the plane went down in Russian territory, Ukraine did not have access to it.
“Following the plane crash, the Federal Security Service and the Russian military did not allow emergency workers to inspect the crash site as per protocol,” Deputy U.N. Ambassador Khrystyna Hayovyshyn said. “According to our military intelligence, only five bodies were sent to the local morgue in Belgorod, and no human remains are visible on videos from the crash site.”
Russia’s deputy envoy, Dmitry Polyanskiy, disputed that, calling it “paranoid nonsense.”
Several council members warned against speculation and accusations without critical facts yet established.
Video of Wednesday’s plane crash posted on social media showed a plane falling from the sky on its side before exploding into a massive fireball as it hit the ground in Russia’s snowy, rural western Belgorod region.
Kharkiv borders Belgorod. The two sides have carried out numerous prisoner swaps since Russia invaded Ukraine nearly two years ago.
Nuclear concerns
Separately, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency briefed the council earlier Thursday on the situation at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine.
Rafael Grossi told reporters after the private meeting that he would be returning to Ukraine in the next 10 days and would then travel to Moscow.
The nuclear plant, which is in occupied Russian territory, recently lost external power for an eighth time. It has also frequently been in the crosshairs of fighting, leading to fears of a nuclear accident.
Asked by a reporter how dangerous the situation at Zaporizhzhia is on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the most dangerous, the IAEA chief said it varies.
“I think that there are days where you are near 10, and there are days that nothing seems to happen,” Grossi said. “The problem is this — the complete uncertainty, because this is a war.”
VOA U.N. Correspondent Margaret Besheer contributed to this report. Some information came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
