Bodies of Ukrainian Victims of Iran Shootdown Return Home

The bodies of the 11 Ukrainian nationals killed when two Iranian anti-aircraft missiles brought down a Ukrainian International Airlines 737 on January 8 arrived at Kyiv’s international airport on Sunday morning. Their caskets were taken into the main terminal building, where they were to remain until the evening for people to pay their respects. Nine of the victims were members of the airliner’s crew; the other two were passengers. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other senior Ukrainian officials were in attendance. Back in Iran, officials on Sunday denied reports that they had agreed to send the so-called black boxes from the downed airliner to Ukraine. According to IRNA, the official state news agency, the Islamic Republic’s civil aviation authority is attempting to download the data itself. “We are trying to read the black boxes here in Iran. Otherwise, our options are Ukraine and France, but no decision has been taken so far to send them to another country,” IRNA quoted Hassan Rezaifar, an official of the country’s Civil Aviation Organization, as saying.