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It wasn’t immediately clear what caused crash, which Ukraine has not confirmed
A military transport plane that Russia said was carrying 74 people, including 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war to be swapped, crashed Wednesday in a border area near Ukraine.
All aboard were killed, according to Belgorod Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov.
It wasn’t immediately clear what caused the crash, which occurred around 11 a.m in Belgorod region. A special military commission was on the way to the crash site, the Russian Defence Ministry said.
The ministry accused Ukrainian forces of firing a missile that downed the plane. Ukrainian officials did not immediately confirm or deny Russia’s claims, although they said they were looking into them.
The Associated Press could not confirm who was aboard the plane. Throughout the 700-day war, Russia and Ukraine have traded conflicting accusations, and establishing the facts has often been difficult, both because of the constraints of a war zone and because each side tightly controls information.
The Russian Defence Ministry said the PoWs were being transported to the region for a prisoner exchange when the plane went down at 11:15 a.m. local time. The plane was en route to the Belgorod region from the Chkalovsky air field in the Moscow region surrounding the Russian capital, and the POW swap was scheduled to take place later Wednesday at the Kolotilovka crossing on the shared border, the statement read.
Andrii Yusov, Ukrainian military intelligence spokesperson, confirmed to media that a prisoner swap was to happen Wednesday but was not going ahead. He said the agency is checking whether Ukrainian POWs were on the plane.
Footage of the crash posted on social media showed a plane falling from the sky in a snowy, rural area, and a massive ball of fire erupting where it apparently hit the ground. Firefighters, ambulances and police rushed to the site of the crash in the Korochansky district of Belgorod, state news agency Tass said, citing a local emergency services official.
The Russian air force
has suffered a string of crashes that some observers have attributed to a higher number of flights amid the fighting in Ukraine.
At the same time, Kyiv has
boasted recently about shooting down two Russian command and control planes, which would be a major feat for Ukraine if verified.
Shortly before the crash, Gladkov said on his Telegram channel that a “missile alert” had been triggered in the region and warned residents to take shelter.
Ukraine suffers heaviest attack in weeks
Earlier Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said a major Russian missile attack that apparently was devised to overwhelm Ukraine’s air defences had killed 18 people and injured 130.
The barrage employing more than 40 ballistic, cruise, anti-aircraft and guided missiles early Tuesday hit 130 residential buildings in three Ukrainian cities, “all ordinary houses,” Zelenskyy said on X, formerly Twitter.
Russia’s onslaught, which included targets in the capital Kyiv and second-largest city Kharkiv, was the heaviest in weeks and lent weight to Zelenskyy’s appeals for Western allies to provide more military aid.
“This year, the main priority is to strengthen air defence to protect our cities and towns, as well as defend frontline positions,” Zelenskyy said on social media.
With the 1,500-kilometre front line largely static amid icy weather and as both sides seek to replenish their weapons stockpiles, the war recently has focused on long-range strikes.
Analysts say Russia stockpiled missiles to pursue a winter campaign of aerial bombardment, while Ukraine has sought to strike inside Russia with new types of drones. Russia may have employed decoy missiles in Tuesday’s attack in an effort to open up holes in Ukraine’s air defences, a U.S. think tank said.
The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said Moscow is likely trying to acquire more ballistic missiles from foreign countries,
including Iran and North Korea.
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Ukraine front lines confront depleted stocks
Ukraine’s allies have promised to keep sending military aid packages, even though their resources are stretched. Help from the United States, by far Ukraine’s single biggest provider,
has hit political snags over policy priorities.
The U.S. has not been able to provide additional munitions since then because the money for replenishing those stockpiles has run out and Congress has yet to approve more funds.
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After a virtual meeting Tuesday chaired by the U.S., Celeste Wallander, assistant defence secretary for international affairs in the Biden administration, told reporters that Ukraine’s ministry of defence is getting reports from its front lines that “units do not have the stocks and the stores of ammunition that they require.”
“I urge this group to dig deep to provide Ukraine with more lifesaving ground-based air defence systems and interceptors,” U.S. Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin told the group.
Canadian Defence Minister Bill Blair, who participated in the Ukraine Defence Contact Group (UDCG) meeting via video link, announced a $35 million commitment from Ottawa. Canada will send 10 rigid hull inflatable boats (RHIBs) and pay to train Ukrainian pilots on how to fly F-16s being donated by Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands.
The German defence ministry announced Wednesday that it plans to send six SEA KING Mk41 multi-role helicopters from Bundeswehr stocks to Ukraine.
Elsewhere in the war, a barrage of Russian S-300 missiles struck residential districts of Kharkiv late Tuesday, injuring nine people and damaging residential buildings, regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said.
The Russian Defence Ministry said that air defences shot down four Ukrainian drones over the Oryol region of western Russia early Wednesday. Oryol Mayor Yuri Parakhin said there were no casualties, but windows were shattered in several apartment buildings.