Russian military plane crashes with 65 Ukrainian prisoners on board, Moscow says

The speaker of the Russian Duma, the lower house of parliament, accused Ukraine of shooting down the plane.

A terrible crash. A Russian Il-76 military transport plane carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war crashed on Wednesday January 24 in the Belgorod region, bordering Ukraine, the Russian Defense Ministry said, according to the country’s agencies. These prisoners were being transported for exchange with Ukraine. Six crew members and three attendants were also present on the plane.

“An Air Force commission went to the site of the plane crash to establish the causes of the disaster”, added the ministry. Images circulating on social networks show a device falling almost steeply, before a large explosion, accompanied by flames and black smoke. The Russian ministry has not given any indication at this stage as to the fate of the plane’s occupants.

The plane shot down by Ukraine?

Shortly after the crash, the speaker of the Russian Duma, the lower house of parliament, accused kyiv of shooting down the plane. “They killed their own soldiers in the air, their mothers, their children were waiting for them,” he proclaimed in the hemicycle. “They shot down our pilots who were carrying out a humanitarian mission (…) with American and German missiles,” denounced Vyacheslav Volodin to the Russian deputies.

The head of the parliamentary defense committee, Andrei Kartapolov, also claimed that the plane was shot down by three Patriot or Iris-T missiles, Western air defense systems supplied to Ukraine. Still according to the elected official, another aircraft carrying 80 Ukrainian prisoners was flying at the time of the accident, and it turned around. Ukraine has not yet reacted. But the media RBK Ukraine and Ukrainskaya Pravda, citing sources within the army, claim that this aircraft was carrying S-300 missiles, a model used to strike Ukrainian territory.