Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he had summoned his military and intelligence chiefs to report on a plane crash over Russian territory that Moscow said killed dozens of Ukrainian prisoners of war (POW).
Russian officials accused Ukraine of shooting down the military aircraft over the Belgorod region on Wednesday, which they said was carrying 65 Ukrainians for a prisoner exchange and nine Russians.
Yesterday, Russian state news wires reported missile debris had been found at the site.
Photo: AP
Authorities in Kyiv initially limited themselves to appeals to avoid spreading unverified information, but in a statement late in the evening Zelenskiy called for an international investigation.
“The key word now is facts,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address, adding that they had to be established to the greatest extent possible given that the Il-76 crashed outside of Ukrainian territory.
In 2022, Russia accused Kyiv of using US-provided high-precision weapons to kill more than 40 Ukrainian POWs in a detention center in the occupied Donetsk region.
Ukraine disputed the claim, saying Russian forces destroyed the facility to conceal the torture of prisoners, accuse Ukraine of war crimes and disrupt the flow of Western weapons.
Russia is now seizing on the crash to sow domestic discontent in Ukraine and undermine Western will to continue giving military support, the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said in a report yesterday.
“It is obvious that the Russians are messing with the lives of Ukrainian captives, the feelings of their relatives, and the emotions of our society,” Zelenskiy said.
US PUBLICATION: The results indicated a change in attitude after a 2023 survey showed 55 percent supported full-scale war to achieve unification, the report said More than half of Chinese were against the use of force to unify with Taiwan under any circumstances, a survey conducted by the Atlanta, Georgia-based Carter Center and Emory University found. The survey results, which were released on Wednesday in a report titled “Sovereignty, Security, & US-China Relations: Chinese Public Opinion,” showed that 55.1 percent of respondents agreed or somewhat agreed that “the Taiwan problem should not be resolved using force under any circumstances,” while 24.5 percent “strongly” or “somewhat” disagreed with the statement. The results indicated a change in attitude after a survey published in “Assessing Public Support for (Non)Peaceful Unification
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
SHIFT: Taiwan’s better-than-expected first-quarter GDP and signs of weakness in the US have driven global capital back to emerging markets, the central bank head said The central bank yesterday blamed market speculation for the steep rise in the local currency, and urged exporters and financial institutions to stay calm and stop panic sell-offs to avoid hurting their own profitability. The nation’s top monetary policymaker said that it would step in, if necessary, to maintain order and stability in the foreign exchange market. The remarks came as the NT dollar yesterday closed up NT$0.919 to NT$30.145 against the US dollar in Taipei trading, after rising as high as NT$29.59 in intraday trading. The local currency has surged 5.85 percent against the greenback over the past two sessions, central
RSS