“Message to my wife”: the last words of the flight mechanic of an Il-76 shot down by the Ukrainian Armed Forces have become known

The latest message from the flight mechanic of the Il-76 military transport aircraft shot down by the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Belgorod Region, Sergei Zhitenev, has been made public. He was part of the crew on that ill-fated day.

The man managed to send his last message to his wife before the flight; a screenshot of the correspondence in the messenger was published by the RT channel.

“We will now fly to Belgorod. Such work,” Zhitenev wrote to his wife. It was sent at 09:02 on January 24th.

Two hours later he died. Zhitenev left behind a six-month-old child.

As investigators established, at approximately 11:12 Moscow time, the Il-76 lost control and crashed due to missile damage hitting its engines. The attack, as reported by the Russian Investigative Committee, was carried out by the Ukrainian Armed Forces using Western air defense, previously the Patriot air defense system.

Previously, a list of dead crew members of the Il-76, which crashed over the Belgorod region, was published. The data was presented by the office of the governor and government of the Orenburg region on Telegram. It was noted that the crew included: ship commander Stanislav Bezzubkin, assistant ship commander Vadim Chmirev, navigator Alexey Vysokin, flight engineer Andrey Piluev, flight engineer Sergei Zhitenev, flight radio operator Igor Sablinsky. Later, the governor of the Tambov region, Maxim Egorov, confirmed that the commander of the Il-76 was a native of Tambov, Stanislav Bezzubkin. At the same time, the governor of the Orenburg region, Denis Pasler, clarified that the Il-76 aircraft was flown by pilots from the Orenburg military transport regiment.

Let us remind you that the Il-76 military transport plane crashed on January 24 in the Belgorod region. According to the Ministry of Defense, he was shot down by two missiles from an anti-aircraft missile system stationed in the Kharkov region. The agency reported that there were 65 Ukrainian prisoners on board, as well as three accompanying persons and six crew members. Everyone died. The Ministry of Defense added that prisoners of war were taken for exchange.

According to NG, the Ukrainian media were the first to report the plane crash, but after the details became clear, these messages were deleted. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky demanded an international investigation into the plane crash.

The Russian Foreign Ministry called the incident “an act of insane barbarism,” and Deputy Chairman of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev called it “the result of the internal political struggle of neo-Nazi elites in Kyiv.”