Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752

Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 was a scheduled international passenger flight from Tehran to Kyiv, operated by Ukraine International Airlines. On 8 January 2020, the Boeing 737-800 flying the route was shot down by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) shortly after takeoff, killing all 176 occupants on board. Missiles were fired at the aircraft by the IRGC amidst heightened tensions between Iran and the United States. The incident occurred five days after the United States carried out the assassination of Qasem Soleimani and some hours after Iran retaliated with Operation Martyr Soleimani, in which the IRGC fired a dozen ballistic missiles on American forces; both the assassination and the missile strikes took place in Iraq. Iranian authorities initially denied having any responsibility for the aircraft's destruction, but investigations by various intelligence agencies from the Western world as well as by the Iranian government later revealed that it had been struck by two surface-to-air missiles. On 11 January 2020, the Government of Iran admitted that the IRGC had shot down the plane, stating that it had "unintentionally" targeted Flight 752 after mistaking it for a cruise missile, and the head of the IRGC apologized for the mistake. The announcement triggered another wave of Iranian anti-government protests (part of the larger 2019–2020 Iranian protests), calling for the removal of Ali Khamenei.