Russia has announced that there are no survivors of 65 prisoners, six crew members and three others believed to have been on board a Russian transport plane that crashed near the Ukrainian border this morning.
Russia has accused Ukraine of crashing a transport plane, believed to be a Cold War-era Ilyushin Il-76, in Belgorod Oblast, which borders northeastern Ukraine, on Wednesday morning.
Ukraine and Russia have issued conflicting reports, and it is unclear how many people died and whether the aircraft was shot down by anti-aircraft fire or crashed.
Moscow said the plane was shot down by Ukraine and was carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners, as well as six crew members and three “guards”, killing everyone on board. Meanwhile, Kiev does not claim to have shot it down, but claims that the plane's real cargo was an S-300 surface-to-air missile that Russia intended to use to attack Ukraine.
Ukraine's state news agency highlighted unverified footage from Russian social media showing the plane crashing, hitting the ground and exploding into a ball of fire. Russia announced that it had sent air accident investigators to the scene.
State news agency TASS reported that Russia's parliament plans to file charges against the United States and Germany over the crash, blaming an air defense missile fired by Ukraine donated by the West as the cause of the crash. Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin reportedly said on the floor: “There is a proposal to find out what missiles and launchers were used. Let's prepare an appeal to the US Congress and the German Bundestag… They have to recognize their responsibility… They “They shot their own soldiers” atmosphere. “
Volodin claimed that the Russian crew on board the transport plane were carrying out a “humanitarian mission” and were killed by the “Nazi regime.” , a label applied to Ukraine by the Russian state.
The crash came a day after Russia's massive airstrikes against Ukraine, in which dozens of missiles hit major cities such as Kiev and Kharkov. According to Ukraine, 18 people were killed and hundreds of buildings were damaged.
This story is developing
