The Russian Ministry of Defense announced on Wednesday that a Russian plane carrying Ukrainian prisoners of war while being transported for exchange crashed in Russia’s Belgorod region near the border with Ukraine.
“Around 11 a.m., an IL-76 aircraft crashed during a routine flight in the Belgorod region. The ship was carrying 65 captured Ukrainian military personnel, 6 crew members and security personnel who were being transferred to the region for a prisoner exchange. “There were three people on board. A Russian Aerospace Forces team flew to the crash site to determine the cause,” the statement said.
Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov later admitted that there were no survivors. “A transport plane crashed in the Kolochansky district. It fell into a field near a populated area. All on board died,” he said. I have written on Telegram.
A local Telegram channel published the following content: picture The moment the plane crashed.
Ukrainian independent media outlet Ukraiska Pravda initially cited military sources as saying that the downed Il-76 was carrying missiles for the S-300 long-range surface-to-air missile, indicating that the downing of the plane was the work of the Ukrainian military. It was reported that it was. -Aerial missile systems, a type of rocket that the Russian military frequently launches into Ukraine rather than prisoners of war. However, the claim was later removed.
Neither the Kremlin nor Kiev have yet commented on the incident.
Andrei Kartapolov, head of the Russian State Duma’s Defense Committee, said Ukrainian authorities were aware of the prisoner exchange and transportation. He added that a second Il-76 carrying 80 more prisoners turned back after the first was shot down.
Speaker of the Russian Duma Vyacheslav Volodin said the Russian Duma will communicate with the U.S. and German parliaments about the crash.
according to According to the Telegram channel MASH, the prisoner exchange was scheduled to take place at around 1pm today at the “usual location” in the Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine.
Il-76 aircraft have been used by Russia to transport Ukrainian prisoners of war in the past. In a news item about the exchange of 248 Russian and Ukrainian prisoners aired on state Channel 1 earlier this month, the Il-76 was shown in the report. according to To our Telegram channel Attention, News.
