Russian invasion of Ukraine: Day 701

Summary for Thursday, 25th January 2024 - DAY 701

Good morning

• The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has called for full clarity into the circumstances of the crash of a Russian plane in the Belgorod region that killed everyone onboard.  Russian officials accuse Ukraine of deliberately shooting down the Il-76 military transport and claim it was carrying Ukrainian prisoners of war due to take part in a swap. Ukrainian military intelligence said it did not have “reliable and comprehensive” information about who or what was onboard the flight.
  
  
• A drone attack on Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Odesa injured one person and started a fire, the regional governor said. Writing on the Telegram messaging app, the governor said the attack had damaged housing in the city.
  
  
• The UK defence secretary, Grant Shapps, said its allies needed to “step up” the amount of military aid given to Ukraine. Writing in Politico, Shapps said: “Ukraine has done an unbelievable job of repelling its invader. It has retaken 50% cent of the territory stolen by Russia … but Kyiv needs more support – and not just from the UK.”
  
  
• The finance minister of Germany has said it can’t keep up Ukraine’s defence capabilities on its own in the long term and that others will need to increase bilateral contributions.
  
  
• Viktor Orbán has said he will urge the Hungarian parliament to sign off on Sweden’s Nato bid “at the first possible opportunity”, as diplomats said Hungary’s allies were “exasperated” by the country’s foot-dragging. Sweden applied to join Nato in May 2022, but its accession was delayed as Turkey and Hungary strung out the ratification process.
  
  
• Ukraine’s foreign ministry has called out US TV network HBO for casting a Serbian actor it says backs the Russian invasion of Ukraine in the next season of hit show The White Lotus. Miloš Biković was given Russian citizenship in 2021 and was personally honoured by Vladimir Putin for his contribution to Russian arts.
  

EXPLAINED: Russia’s downed IL-76 plane, everything we know so far

The circumstances of the crash and details of who was on board remain murky but Western analysts have cautioned against accepting Moscow’s version of events at face value.

President Zelensky has called for an international investigation into the downing of a Russian military transport plane on Wednesday, as Moscow and Kyiv traded accusations over the circumstances of the incident.

Remind me, what happened yesterday?
A Russian IL-76 plane fell from the sky in Russia’s western Belgorod region, crashing into the ground in a giant fireball and likely killing everyone on board.
According to the region’s governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, the crash occurred around 10 a.m. Kyiv time (8:00 a.m. GMT) in the Korochansky district, northeast of the Belgorod region’s capital.
Maria Mexentseva, a resident of nearby Yablonovo, told Russian state media: “The plane crashed far away from the village. It was very loud and very scary.
“We just heard a loud rumble. There was already smoke, fire and rumbling.”

What downed the plane?
That is still up for debate but a Ukrainian media outlet initially reported that the Ukrainian military had claimed responsibility and the plane had been carrying S-300 anti-aircraft missiles.
However, this claim was later retracted.

What has Russia claimed?
Russia's defense ministry said the aircraft was carrying 65 Ukrainian soldiers captured in during its full-scale invasion, as well as six crew and three escorts.
It also claimed Ukrainian forces stationed in the Kharkiv border region had fired two missiles at the transport aircraft, describing it as a “terrorist act.”

https://twitter.com/sentdefender/status/1750294703638040762?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1750294703638040762%7Ctwgr%5Ee7782032353d5ef9fb8f8bb5b7b164dab19e258d%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.kyivpost.com%2Fpost%2F27158

It added that the crash had come hours ahead of the planned prisoner exchange at a border crossing in Belgorod.
“The Ukrainian leadership was well aware that, in accordance with established practice, the Ukrainian servicemen to be exchanged would be transported by military transport aircraft to the Belgorod aerodrome today,” it said.
On Thursday the Kremlin described the incident as a "monstrous act", adding: "No-one can say what impact this will have" on extending a prisoner exchange programme.
Russia’s claims could not be verified and later on Wednesday the head of Russian-state broadcaster RT published a list of captured Ukrainian servicemen allegedly on board.
But an analysis by Novaya Gazeta found only 13 names on the list could currently be verified as real Ukrainian POWs while at least one had already been traded back to Ukraine earlier this month.

https://twitter.com/KevinRothrock/status/1750161637728723373?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1750161637728723373%7Ctwgr%5Ee7782032353d5ef9fb8f8bb5b7b164dab19e258d%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.kyivpost.com%2Fpost%2F27158

What has Ukraine said?
Kyiv confirmed a prisoner swap was due to occur on Wednesday but said the identities of those aboard the downed plane was yet to be established.
“We currently do not have reliable or comprehensive information on who was on board the plane or in what number,” Ukraine's main intelligence agency said in a statement.
President Zelensky in an evening address, did not confirm or deny Moscow's accusations, but stressed that Russia was “playing with the lives of Ukrainian prisoners, with the feelings of their relatives and with the emotions of our society.”
“We need to establish all clear facts, as much as possible given that the plane crash occurred on Russian territory – beyond our control,” he said.

So, what do we know for certain?
Right now, not much but Western analysts cautioned against accepting the Russian version of events at face value.
Keir Giles, Senior Consulting Fellow, Russia & Eurasia Programme, Chatham House, said: “…at this point, we have no way for certain of knowing what has happened. So far, the only suggestion that there were Ukrainians on board comes from the Russian Ministry of Defense, which usually serves as an indicator that the opposite is true.
“The aircraft was flying away from Belgorod – it was supposedly carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war with just three guards. Russia mounted an impressively fast disinformation campaign off the back of the incident. That’s usually an indication that it was known about in advance.
“So, we should consider the possibility that Russia fed Ukrainian intelligence information that the aircraft was carrying S-300 missiles, as initially reported – but, in fact, filled it with Ukrainians in the expectation that it would be shot down.”

What happens next?
Around the time Zelensky called for an international investigation, the UN Security Council agreed to meet Thursday at 17:00 ET (2200 GMT) to discuss Moscow’s accusations regarding the plane, AFP reports.

Anything else I need to know?
The issue of prisoners of war is sensitive in both countries.
Despite full-scale hostilities, the two sides have carried out 49 prisoner exchanges since the war began almost two years ago.
Kyiv says more than 8,000 Ukrainians remain in Russian captivity, including civilians.

In 2022, Russia and Ukraine accused each other of carrying out deadly bombardments on a jail holding dozens of captured Ukrainian servicemen in Kremlin-controlled Olenivka, in Ukraine’s Donetsk region.

Since Moscow launched large-scale hostilities in Ukraine in February 2022, several Russian military aircraft have crashed, and Ukraine has also claimed to have shot down Russian war planes.

In Russia, the plane carrying Wagner mercenary group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin crashed last August on a flight from Moscow to St Petersburg.
Moscow denied involvement, claiming instead that the plane crashed because its passengers detonated a grenade on board.

Reuters, citing the RIA news agency in Russia, reports that both black boxes have been recovered from the crashed Russian transport plane in the Belgorod region.

Moscow 'playing with the lives of Ukrainian prisoners', says Zelenskiy

Russia and Ukraine will continue exchanging prisoners of war despite the downing of a Russian military plane

Ukraine’s SBU is claiming credit for a recent fire at the oil refinery in Tuapse, Russia.

Reuters is also carrying some quotes about the apparent attack on the oil refinery in Tuapse.

Ukraine’s largest oil and gas company, Naftogaz, has reported that it is suffering “a large-scale cyber-attack” on one of its datacentres.

Ukraine's oil giant Naftogaz under large-scale cyberattack

Naftogaz, Ukraine's state-owned gas and oil company, was hit by a large-scale cyberattack, the company said on Jan. 25 on its Telegram channel.

A ton of cocaine was found in the port of St. Petersburg for the second time in a month

For the second time in a month, a ton of cocaine was discovered on the territory of the port “Bolshoi” in St. Petersburg (Russia).

On the territory of the port, employees of the federal customs service and the FSB found more than 1,200 kilograms of cocaine, rosZMI reports.
According to customs officials, the value of such a shipment of cocaine on the black market exceeds 1.47 billion dollars.
According to the FMS, cocaine was found among bags of coffee in a container that arrived from the Belgian city of Antwerp.
We will remind, on January 10, a ton of cocaine from Nicaragua was found in the port of St. Petersburg. In 2023, four tons of drugs were seized in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region.

Bellingcat’s investigator uncovers special Russian kill team sabotage plots across Europe

Investigator Christo Grozev pieces together how a Russian intel unit targeted Zelenskyy in 2022, with their commander now planning to replace Prigozhin.

Bellingcat’s investigative journalist Christo Grozev has helped expose a covert Russian military intelligence unit called 29155, a special forces team carrying out sabotage and assassinations across Europe, as he told The Insider.
The emails obtained by investigators shed light on Russia’s overconfidence about a quick victory against Ukraine that never materialized.

29155 was created in 2007 or 2008 when Putin decided that “the world is an enemy.” The large unit’s subdivision consists of about 70 Russian short-term undercover agents specializing in assassinations. Grozev said they are behind high-profile attacks like the 2018 Novichok poisoning of ex-spy Sergei Skripal in the UK.

Bellingcat has obtained insider emails about Russia’s failed plan to quickly assassinate President Zelenskyy and the people around him. The emails were sent by a Russian intel officer who was part of an advanced kill team deployed to Kyiv early in the full-scale invasion.

Grozev said the unencrypted emails showed the Russians expected a one-week war in Ukraine and were disappointed when it dragged on. But the officer was stuck for months as part of the unsuccessful mission targeting Zelenskyy.

With Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin now dead, Putin seemingly singled out 29155 commander General Andrey Averyanov as his successor, handling Russian security ties abroad.

Grozev also called Putin critic and chess Grandmaster Garry Kasparov to warn that a 29155 agent had infiltrated Russian exile groups to get close to him. “It was again a blood-curdling discovery to see this spy… trained in assassination, to be so close to Kasparov,” Grozev said.
He believes exposing the unit’s plots has “disabled a generation of killers.” But it also put Grozev on Russia’s kill list, which he learned from an intelligence insider.

Previously, Grozev’s open-source intelligence project Bellingcat extensively covered Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, namely regarding Russia’s downing of the MH-17 flight in 2014.

Sergei Boiko, the head of Russia’s Tuapse district, has confirmed on Telegram that overnight there was a fire at the Rosneft-owned oil refinery situated there on the coast of the Black Sea.