Russia-Ukraine war: Putin ‘playing with lives’ in plane crash as Moscow blames Kyiv

As Russia and Ukraine trade accusations over this week’s crash of a Russian military transport plane, one thing is clear: families’ fears that future prisoner exchanges may be in danger and loved ones could stay imprisoned.

Even the basic facts are being debated. Russian officials accused Kyiv of shooting down the plane Wednesday and claimed that 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war were on board as they headed for a prisoner swap. The Ukrainian side said it had no evidence of POWs and that Russia is just playing with Ukrainians’ psyche. It did say, however, that an exchange had been due to take place on Wednesday.

The Russian defence industry will supply the army with “several times” more military equipment this year than in 2022 and 2023, Interfax news quoted Deputy Defence Minister Alexei Krivoruchko as saying on Friday.

Russia has placed its economy on a war footing and shifted defence plants to round-the clock production to meet the needs of its forces in Ukraine.

A Moscow court extended the custody of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich by two months on Friday as he awaits trial on spying charges that he denies.

Video released by Moscow City Court showed the reporter standing in a barred cage in the courtroom to listen to the decision, which extends his custody until March 30.

He has the right to appeal within three days. Previous appeals to be released from Moscow’s Lefortovo prison while awaiting trial have been refused.

Gershkovich was arrested on March 29, 2023 in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg and accused of trying to obtain defence secrets. He and his newspaper strongly reject the charges and the U.S. government has designated him as “wrongfully detained”.

UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi will visit Ukraine, including its capital and the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP), the week after next, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on Friday.

“DG (Director General) Grossi is expected to visit Ukraine, including Kyiv and the ZNPP the week of 5 February,” an IAEA spokesman said in a statement.

The Kremlin on Friday denied a Bloomberg report that President Vladimir Putin was “putting out feelers” to the United States for possible talks on ending the war in Ukraine and might consider dropping key demands on Ukraine‘s security status.

The Bloomberg report said Putin was “testing the waters” on whether Washington was ready to engage in talks, and had reached out to the United States via indirect channels.

It cited two people close to the Kremlin as saying Putin “may be willing to consider dropping an insistence on neutral status for Ukraine and even ultimately abandon opposition to eventual NATO membership – the threat of which has been a central Russian justification for the invasion”.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was asked by reporters about the story, and specifically whether Moscow was really ready to give up its demands on neutrality and NATO.

“No, this is a wrong report. It absolutely does not correspond to reality,” Peskov said.

In any war, there is the physical fighting, and then there is the information war – an aspect of conflict that can make establishing facts more difficult.

What is worth remembering is that Moscow has a long history of disinformation.

Take the annexation of Crimea, which has been occupied by Russia since 2014 – the Kremlin denied that Russian soldiers were involved before eventually acknowledging their presence. There were also the statements around the shooting down of MH17 and the novichok poisonings in Salisbury.

The black boxes from a Russian Il-76 military transport plane that crashed near the Ukrainian border on Wednesday have been delivered to a special laboratory in Moscow for analysis, Russian state media said.

Experts have already started work on recovering flight data from the boxes, they said.

The Kremlin has stopped handing out pardons to convicts who fight in Ukraine, a think tank has said.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said Russia ceased recruitment into its convict Storm-Z units in August and starting sending convicts into Storm-V units.

Contracts for service in the Storm-V units are indefinite until the end of the war and do not include the promise of a pardon, it added.

Vladimir Putin has been accused of potentially using Ukrainian prisoners of war as human shields on board a downed Russian military plane.

Khrystyna Hayovyshyn, Ukraine’s deputy ambassador to the UN, said it would be the first case of Russia using human shields on aircraft to cover for transportation of weaponry if it was confirmed PoWs were on board.

“Ukraine was not informed about the number of vehicles, roads and means of transportation of the captives. This alone may constitute intentional actions by Russia to endanger the lives and safety of the prisoners,” she added.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said he welcomes the “start of substantial preparations” for Ukraine’s EU accession talks.

Following discussions with Ursula von der Leyen, President of the EU Commission, at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday, the Ukrainian President said: “The screening process, which lays the groundwork for the negotiations, has officially begun in Brussels.”