MOSCOW, March 5. /TASS/. Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service Director Sergey Naryshkin said the US leadership disapproved of the Ukrainian attack on the Russian military transport plane that was carrying captured Ukrainian soldiers.
In an exclusive interview for Soloviev Live television, Naryshkin also said it is a "hard fact" that US intelligence services were involved in the training of Ukrainian special service officers.
That’s according to excerpts from the interview that were shown on Rossiya-1 television and on the Smotrim platform.
"I want to hope that the Americans feel certain disgust with the crude methods, the crudest methods of the Ukrainian Security Service and military intelligence. In any case, I can tell you that the reaction of high-ranking US officials to the destruction of our transport plane that was carrying [Ukrainian prisoners of war] was very negative," Naryshkin said.
"But at the same time, let me say this again, the Americans, and especially the British have been and are involved in training special operations forces and intelligence officers for sabotage against our country," Naryshkin said.
On January 24, the Ukrainian armed forces shot down a Russian Ilyushin-76 military transport plane over Russia’s Belgorod Region, which was carrying Ukrainian prisoners of war for exchange. There were 74 people on board, including 65 Ukrainian POWs. There were no survivors. The Russian Defense Ministry described the incident as a terrorist act, stressing that Kiev had prior knowledge about the transportation of prisoners for exchange and attacked the plane in order to blame Moscow for killing Ukrainians.