Air Accidents: Planes Destroyed by Russia

On 25 February, Antoni Macierewicz, the head of the Committee for the Re-Investigation of the Smolensk Plane Crash, former Polish defence minister and incumbent MP, made a statement at the Polish Sejm, saying that the government plane crashed as a result of the detonation of an explosive device.

Macierewicz pointed out: “The main thesis, or rather the truth, is that the plane was destroyed by an explosion. It was caused by an explosive device found on the elements of the crashed TU-154M. In course of further investigative actions, the prosecutor’s office is to determine who set the explosive device. The fact of detection of the explosive was confirmed by Polish and foreign laboratories. An additional argument in favour of the explosion version is the reluctance of the Russian side to return the wreckage.”

Such a position gives rise to suspicions of the guilty conscience of Russians. The relevant statements were already made at the level of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland.

The previously published files of the Smolensk crash investigation indicated that there were sounds of two explosions on the plane’s black box recording.

Experts are sure that the plane was destroyed in the air, at an altitude of about 900 meters.

On 25 April 2018, a technical report of the Committee for the Re-Investigation of the Smolensk Plane Crash was published, saying that the cause of the tragedy was an explosion in the plane’s wing before it collided with the ground. According to additional examinations conducted with the participation of the British side, it was established that passengers and crew members died as a result of explosion, not a ground impact.

Hence, the Russian version of the Flight 101 crash due to the descent below the minimum descent altitude in thick fog was refuted. Moreover, it was already established that the explosive was planted during the repair of two government planes in Russia in 2009. Traces of TNT, penthrite and hexogen were also found inside the parts of Flight 102, to which only Russian technicians had access.

Downed planes

In 2014, the Russian invaders downed passenger Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 in the sky over Donbas. The Dutch Safety Board (DSB) and the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) concluded that the plane was shot down by a surface-to-air missile from the Buk system. According to JIT, the Buk belonged to the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade of the Russian Armed Forces and was delivered to Ukraine from Russia on the day of the crash. After a missile had been launched downing the plane, the Buk system was returned to Russian territory.

Explosion of the Polish presidential plane and MH17 plane crash make us reconsider another tragedy: the crash of Kogalymavia’s Airbus A321-231 over the Sinai Peninsula in October 2015. Then, with Putin’s consent, lives of 219 citizens of Russia alone were sacrificed to implement the Russian Main Intelligence Directorate’s plan to invade Syria to “save” the Assad regime. A Russian intelligence officer had an affair with a Russian woman vacationing in Sharm El Sheikh and gifted her a package containing a bomb. It denotated 23 minutes after the plane took off. Islamic terrorists were found guilty. As a result, the Kremlin received a carte blanche to bomb the Syrian opposition under the guise of retaliation against ISIS, turning the country into a military training ground.

On 8 January 2020, a Boeing 737-800 of Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) operated international flight PS752 from Tehran to Kyiv. It was shot down about three minutes after takeoff by two surface-to-air missiles fired from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps bases. The plane crashed 15 kilometers away from the Tehran airport. There were 176 people on board – 167 passengers and nine crew members. All of them died.

Canadian authorities and intelligence services studied an audio recording in which a man identified as Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif discusses with unknown persons the possibility that the destruction of Flight PS752 was an intentional act. The minister says that there are a “thousand possibilities to explain the downing of the jet, including a deliberate attack involving two or three infiltrators.” Such a scenario, according to him, was “not at all unlikely.” Iran’s Foreign Minister says that the country’s leadership will never reveal the truth about the tragedy. Javad Zarif cited as an example the Russian Federation, which “will never admit” the downing of Flight MH17 over Donbas in 2014.

We cannot be certain that Putin’s intelligence services will make do with the air accidents that already happened, as impunity breeds new lawlessness and innocent victims. Putin’s Kremlin pays no regard to any sacrifices for implementing its insane plans.

Yuri Fedorenko, analyst, public relations expert

The author’s opinion does not always coincide with the opinion of the editorial staff