Russian plane carrying prisoners of war from Ukraine crashes – Moscow

A Russian military plane called Ilyushin-76 crashed in southern Belgorod region near Ukraine.

Russia’s defense department said 65 Ukrainian soldiers who were captured were on a plane going to the Belgorod region for a swap with prisoners.

We cannot confirm any of the information about the people on board.

Ria Novosti news agency reported that there were nine more people on the plane, including six crew members.

Ukraine’s military leaders said the plane was carrying missiles for Russia’s air defense systems. They told this to the Ukrainska Pravda website. It didn’t talk about prisoners of war.

However, the leader of Ukraine’s military intelligence department, Andriy Yusov, said that a swap of prisoners was supposed to happen.

“I want to say that the trade that was supposed to happen today is not happening,” he told Radio Liberty.

A video on social media showed a plane crashing and exploding with a big fireball near a place called Yablonovo. It happened at 11:00 am local time near the city of Belgorod, about 44 miles away.

The leader of Belgorod region in Russia said a plane crashed in a field near houses and everyone on the plane died.

Some news sources in Ukraine said at first that the Il-76 might have been shot down by Ukrainian forces, but those reports were taken off later.

The Ukraine military told BBC Ukrainian that they didn’t have the right information yet and were looking into what happened.

The Ukrainian government group in charge of prisoners of war said that Russia is doing secret operations to cause problems in Ukrainian society.

In a later message, the Russian defense ministry said a military plane took off from Chkalovsky air base near Moscow and was heading to Belgorod. They claimed that Ukraine’s air force had shot two anti-aircraft missiles from the Lyptsi area, south of the Ukrainian border.

A swap of prisoners was supposed to happen on Wednesday afternoon at a border checkpoint 100km west of Belgorod.

Andrei Kartapolov, the head of Russia’s military defense committee, said there was another plane carrying 80 Ukrainian prisoners in the sky, but it changed direction later.

MrKartapolov told Russian TV that there will not be any more prisoner exchanges.

Ukraine and Russia have traded prisoners during the war.

Earlier this month, Ukraine and Russia swapped prisoners. Ukraine let go of 248 Russian prisoners of war, and Russia released 230 people. The United Arab Emirates helped make this deal happen.

More than 8,000 Ukrainians are still kidnapped by Russia, and tens of thousands are still missing, according to Ukraine’s Coordination HQ.

A warning was issued across Ukraine after a plane crash.

Belgorod, a place close to Ukraine, has been hit by air strikes and drones many times and many people have been hurt or killed.

In December, an air attack happened and 25 people died while 100 were hurt. Ukraine said they only aimed at military buildings and blamed Russia for the pieces landing in the city.

Russia attacked Ukraine in February 2022 and the war has been going on for almost three years.

Russia said they took over a village near the damaged city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine. Kyiv has not said if the claim is true.

Recently, the Russian air attacks have been happening more often. On Tuesday, 18 people died and 130 were hurt in missile attacks on cities in Ukraine.

Ukraine’s Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said that Ukrainian forces do not have enough ammunition. He also said that Russia has used over 600 missiles and 1,000 drones in the last two months.

Ukraine is using drones to fight. Over the weekend, a drone attack caused a big blast at a gas terminal near the city of St Petersburg.