Military plane crashes in Russia, killing all onboard, Moscow says
The Russian Defence Ministry has claimed that a transport plane carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war crashed and accused Ukraine of shooting it down. The claims could not be independently verified.
The New York Times reports that a large Russian military transport plane crashed on Wednesday in the Belgorod region near the border with Ukraine killing everyone on board, the Russian Defence Ministry said in a statement, accusing Ukraine of shooting down the plane with missiles.
The Defence Ministry said that the plane had been carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war who were being transferred to the region from a military airport near Moscow to be exchanged for Russian service personnel. It accused Ukrainian forces of launching two missiles from the nearby Kharkiv region of Ukraine that struck the aircraft. The plane was also carrying six crew members and three other individuals, the ministry said.
The Russian claims could not be independently verified.
Officials in Kyiv did not comment directly on Moscow’s accusations that Ukraine shot down the plane but the military’s general staff headquarters issued a statement Wednesday afternoon asserting a right to target Russian military transport airplanes in the border region.
The statement, posted on the military command’s Facebook page, did not deny shooting down the plane. It said that repeated Russian missile strikes on the city of Kharkiv and the surrounding region had in the past week killed 16 people and wounded another 78 people and that Ukraine had responded by targeting missile launch sites and the logistics for missile deliveries.
“The armed forces of Ukraine will continue to take measures to destroy delivery vehicles and control the airspace to eliminate the terrorist threat,” the statement said.
The Belgorod region of Russia has a long border with Ukraine. Over the past few weeks, it has been the scene of frequent Ukrainian attacks, including a missile bombardment in December. It was also the staging ground for Moscow’s full-scale invasion in 2022 and for further Russian strikes against Ukrainian territory during the war.
The governor of the Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said in a statement on social media that the plane had crashed in a field near a settlement in the Korochansky district. He said that emergency services were at the site and were investigating.
A video posted to Telegram and verified by The Times showed a large plane crashing and exploding in Yablonovo, a town in the Korochansky district. Tass, a Russian state news agency, published a video of the scene of the crash showing debris littering a snowy field.
In its statement, the Russian Defence Ministry said that Ukraine’s leadership was “well aware that, in accordance with established practice, Ukrainian servicemen were to be transported by military transport aircraft to Belgorod airfield today for exchange.”
The New York Times
