Plane crash in western Russia: What we know
Ukraine's military General Staff said in a statement it would continue to destroy Russian military aircraft which it believed were carrying missiles with which to strike Ukraine
Russia accused Ukraine on Wednesday of shooting down a military transport plane carrying 65 captured Ukrainian soldiers to a prisoner exchange. Ukraine's military General Staff, without saying whether it downed the plane or not, said in a statement it would continue to destroy Russian military aircraft which it believed were carrying missiles with which to strike Ukraine.
Here's a summary of what we know so far.
WHAT WAS THE PLANE AND WHO WAS ON BOARD?
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The aircraft was an Ilyushin Il-76, a large military transport plane designed to carry troops, cargo or weapons. Russia said that beside the 65 Ukrainian POWs there were six Russian crew members and three Russian soldiers on board. The plane crashed in a huge fireball, killing all 74 people on board, the Russian defence ministry said.
Ukrainian military intelligence said it had no reliable information about who was aboard the crashed plane.
WHERE DID IT HAPPEN?
The crash took place just northeast of Belgorod in western Russia, close to the border with Ukraine. Belgorod region has been the target of frequent cross-border attacks by Ukraine but this, if the toll is confirmed, would be by far the deadliest single incident of its kind in the almost two-year-old war to take place inside Russia's internationally recognised territory.
WHAT CAUSED THE CRASH?
Russia's defence ministry accused the "Kyiv regime" of shooting down the plane, saying Russian radar had detected the launch of two Ukrainian missiles from Ukraine's Kharkiv region. Earlier, Russian lawmaker and former general Andrei Kartapolov had spoken of three missiles and said they were either U.S. Patriots or German-made IRIS-Ts. He said investigators would determine exactly what kind of missiles were used when they recovered fragments from the crash site.
Ukrainian military intelligence did not confirm that Ukraine had shot down the plane, and said Russia's accusations could be "a planned action to destabilise the situation in Ukraine and weaken international support for our state".
WHAT WAS THE PRISONER EXCHANGE THAT WAS PLANNED?
Russia's defence ministry said an exchange had been due to take place at the Kolotilovka checkpoint on the border between Russia and Ukraine. It said the plane that was shot down had been flying from the Chkalovsky airbase near Moscow to Belgorod, in which case it would have been in the final stage of its flight.
Ukrainian military intelligence confirmed a swap was planned for Wednesday and said Kyiv had met all the terms for it, but it was not informed by Russia about the means of transport for the prisoners of war, and their routes. It said that unlike in previous exchanges, Ukraine had not been asked to guarantee the security of airspace over Belgorod at a specific time.
Russian lawmaker Kartapolov said the plane had not been escorted by Russian fighter planes because the flight had been agreed with the Ukrainians in advance. He said a second Il-76 transport plane carrying around 80 more Ukrainian soldiers to the exchange had managed to turn around.
Russia and Ukraine have carried out several big prisoner swaps in the course of the war.
Russian state TV journalist Margarita Simonyan published what she said was a list of the 65 names of the Ukrainian POWs on the plane. Reuters could not independently confirm it.
