Russia accused Ukraine on Wednesday of deliberately shooting down a Russian military transport plane carrying 65 captured Ukrainian troops to a prisoner swap, and a local authority confirmed that all 74 people on board were murdered.
According to Russian state media, six Russian crew members and three guards were aboard the Ilyushin Il-76 military cargo plane that was shot down near the Russian city of Belgorod, close to the Ukrainian border.
“It was absolutely deliberate. They knew very well that the plane was en route, where it was going, and the operators of Ukrainian surface-to-air missile systems cannot mistake transport planes for military planes or helicopters as targets,” Andrei Kartapolov, a lawmaker in Russia’s parliament and a retired general, said in a TV interview.
“It was done deliberately to sabotage the prisoner exchange.”
Kartapolov, who maintains strong ties to the defense ministry, claimed the plane was shot down by three missiles manufactured in the United States or Germany.
If the details are accurate, it would be the bloodiest occurrence in the nearly two-year-old conflict within Russia’s internationally recognized borders.
The Ukrainian defense ministry did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. According to the Interfax-Ukraine news agency, it does not currently have any accurate information but will release it as soon as it does.
Mykhailo Podolyak, a Ukrainian presidential aide, told a journalist that “comments will come a little later. Time is needed to clarify all the data.”
Ukrainian media site Ukrainska Pravda initially quoted military sources as saying Kyiv shot down the jet because it was carrying S-300 missiles, but later revised the article, stating that the information had not been corroborated by other sources.
A video released on the Telegram messaging app by Baza, a channel associated with Russian security services, and authenticated by Reuters showed a huge aircraft plummeting to the ground near the village of Yablonovo in the Belgorod region and exploding in a massive blaze.
Chronicle NG could not immediately confirm who was on board, but Moscow and Kyiv have frequently exchanged prisoners since Russia launched its “special military operation” in Ukraine in February 2022.
Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of the Belgorod area, stated that everyone on board the plane was dead and that it crashed in the territory’s Korochansky district, northeast of Belgorod.
He stated that detectives and rescue workers were already on the spot.
The Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine, has been repeatedly attacked by Ukraine in recent months, including a December missile strike that killed 25 people.
Vyacheslav Volodin, chairman of the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, said the chamber would prepare an appeal to the U.S. Congress and the German Bundestag “so their lawmakers at last can see clearly who they are financing and who they are helping.”
“They (Ukraine) shot down their own soldiers in mid-air. Their mothers, wives, and children were waiting for them.
”They took a decision and shot down our defenseless pilots on a military transport plane, who were carrying out a humanitarian mission, with American and German rockets,” said Volodin.
The Il-76 is a military transport plane designed to fly soldiers, cargo, military equipment, and weapons. It typically has a crew of five and can accommodate up to 90 passengers.
In answer to a reporter’s question, the Kremlin stated that it is investigating the incident.
