On Wednesday, Iran’s Civil Aviation Organisation (CAO) released its final report on the downing of a Ukraine Airlines flight last year that drew swift condemnation from Ukraine and Canada.
Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752 was hit by two missiles after taking off from Tehran on January 8, 2020. All 176 people on board died.The CAOI's report blames errors by an air defence unit for the tragedy, stating an operator "misidentified" the plane as hostile and fired the missiles without authorisation from a commander.
In a video posted on Facebook following the report's publication, Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba called the Iranian investigation "biased", the evidence presented "selective", and the conclusions "deceptive".
"The document does not present all the circumstances, does not reveal the root causes of the tragedy or the chain of actions that led to it. This is not a report, it is a collection of manipulations, the goal of which is not to establish the truth, but to whitewash the Islamic Republic of Iran," he said.
According to BBC, The CAOI's final report says that, following a tactical relocation, the air defence unit in question "failed to adjust the system direction out of human error, causing the operator to observe the target flying west from [Tehran Imam Khomeini Airport] as a target approaching Tehran from the south-west at a relatively low altitude".
"The target specifications were announced to the command centre, but the message was never relayed. Without receiving a go-ahead or response from the command centre, [the operator] came to identify the target as a hostile one and fired a missile at the aircraft against the procedure planned," it added.
According to Dmytro Kuleba, Iran conducted a technical investigation with numerous violations of international standards, the Chicago Convention and IKAO. He said the evidence presented was selective, drawing false conclusions.
At the same time, the Foreign Minister assured that Ukraine and its international partners will find ways to find out the truth of this tragedy.
"We will not allow Iran to hide the truth, we will not allow it to avoid responsibility for this crime. Justice will triumph, no matter how much effort and time it takes," he assured.