DISINFO: The British are behind the IL-76 plane crash aiming to kill Russia’s top negotiators
SUMMARY
The IL-76 crashed [24 January 2024] because someone really wanted to kill Russia's top negotiators. All this was masterminded by the British, for whom the activity of the Americans in Ukraine became a pain in the ass and began to mess in their plans for the war until the last Ukrainian. That’s why they decided to launch this attack. Representatives of the negotiating group of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation – Duma deputy Shamsail Saraliev and General Sergei Egorov – were to fly on the downed plane. Their flight was accidentally cancelled, and those who planned the terrorist attack could not have known. Someone wanted to destroy everything deliberately and for good.
RESPONSE
Conspiracy theory not backed by any evidence. Although the circumstances surrounding the IL-76 plane crash remained murky at the moment this disinformation story appeared, there is nothing to substantiate the allegation that Russian top negotiators were to be aboard the plane.
The purpose of this disinformation story is to portray the UK as a warmongering and militaristic power inflexible in its pursuit of a proxy war against Russia and contrary to any negotiation. As this is presented in contrast to “the Americans”, another goal is to create divisions in the trans-Atlantic relationship.
Pro-Kremlin outlets and channels have frequently presented Russia as looking for peace negotiations in contrast to other war-seeking actors, and this disinformation story is part of that campaign. But Putin and the Kremlin have a track record of pretending negotiations which are, in fact, just blunt demands for Ukrainian unconditional surrender. We have analysed this disinformation tactic in several articles, especially: "Prepare for winter" (30 Nov. 2023), "Russian so-called ‘peace proposals’ are empty PR stunts" (18 Jan. 2023) , "What He Said and What it Really Means – Vol. 2: “Negotiations” (1. March 2022) and "The Kremlin security demands" (21 Dec. 2021).
See other examples of similar disinformation narratives, such as claims that the West did not want peace, it prodded Ukraine into war, that Zelenskyy’s peace plan is a war formula, that Russia never rejected a peaceful solution in Ukraine but Kyiv refuses to negotiate, that the EU does not want peace, only the total defeat of Russia, that the West is not interested in peace, or that Boris Johnson derailed 2022 Istanbul peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine.
The incident is spun by the Kremlin ecosystem in a fashion resembling the downing of the Malaysian civilian airliner MH17 in 2014 - see our account here.