The Iranian Civil Aviation Organization (CAO) says it has circulated a draft of its report on January’s shooting down of a Ukrainian civilian airliner with 176 passengers and crew members on board to the countries that had participated in its investigation. Details have not as yet been released.

Hours after the statement by CAO, Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister Yevhen Yenin denied that his country has received any report from Iranian authorities. He told Ukraine’s Radio One that “the problem is” in the past two months “every week” Iran has claimed that the report of the incident is ready and is being translated.

Yenin reiterated Ukraine’s demand for an impartial and independent investigation to take place on the ground. Iran has not allowed any foreign investigators to participate in its secretive investigation.

On Monday afternoon [December 21], Iranian officials held an online meeting with representatives of Ukraine as well as other countries whose nationals were among the victims − Canada, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and Germany. France, which offered technological assistance in the investigation, and representatives from the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) also took part.

Ukrainian Airlines flight PS752 was hit by surface-to-air missiles fired by Iranian air defenses on January 8 shortly after Iranian ballistic missiles hit United States bases in Iraq in retaliation for the United States killing Iranian general Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad five days earlier. Tehran has blamed human error in mistaking the plane for a Cruise missile.

Last week, Canada, where most of the passengers were travelling, said the investigation had left many questions unanswered. On December 15, Canada’s foreign minister François-Philippe Champagne said he did not believe downing of the plane resulted from human error.

Ottawa on December 15 published a report written by Ralph Goodale, a special advisor to the prime minister, that drew no specific conclusions over PS752 though arguing Iran had “not yet been forthcoming” over several matters − including why it left open its airspace in the hours after firing missiles at US bases in Iraq. Goodale said the process had been complicated by Canada’s lack of diplomatic relations with Iran and by its listing of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), whose missile battery downed the plane, as a “terrorist” organization.

On December 7, Gyunduz Mamedov, the Ukraine deputy prosecutor who leads the Kyiv delegation in the investigations, had said that Iran had refused to offer evidence and information on the case and had delayed the investigation by not cooperating.

In a series of tweets on Wednesday December 23, Anna Rajskaya, a freelance reporter who has followed the case, said it was not clear whether the report promised by Iran would be simply what was presented at the video conference. “CAO’s latest update on the technical investigation about the flight is confusing at its best,” she wrote. “What was the point of presenting only bits and pieces of what is supposed to be the final report on the case?”

Family members of victims have long expressed dissatisfaction at the investigation. At a December 14 gathering of the families in front of the military courtroom where investigators are based, the father of one victim, Maryam Malek, called the IRGC Aerospace Commander Amir-Ali Hajizadeh and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif “criminals,” and demanded the trial of all those involved in shooting down the aircraft.