Russian military jet crashes near Belgorod, killing 74, officials say

RIGA, Latvia – A Russian military plane crashed Wednesday in the western Belgorod region near the border with Ukraine, killing 74 people on board, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement that also accused Ukraine of shooting down the aircraft.

The ministry said the plane, an Ilyushin Il-76, was carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war who were being transported to the region for a subsequent swap, as well as six crew members and three other individuals.

In a video address Wednesday evening, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he had summoned his top military and defense chiefs for a report “on the situation with the plane.”

Zelenskyy did not specifically confirm the deaths of POWs, but spoke in a grave tone. The president said that he had spoken to Ukraine’s military leadership regarding its “use of the air force” – an implicit acknowledgment that Kyiv downed the aircraft – and that the military intelligence directorate “is engaged in finding out the fate of all prisoners.”

He accused the Russians of putting Ukrainian prisoners in danger. “It is obvious that the Russians are playing with the lives of Ukrainian prisoners, with the feelings of their relatives and with the emotions of our society,” Zelenskyy said.

Earlier in the day, Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence confirmed that a prisoner swap was scheduled to take place Wednesday. The directorate, however, said it “lacks credible and comprehensive information regarding who exactly was on board the plane and in what quantity.”

“Ukraine fulfilled all agreements for exchange preparations. Russian prisoners were timely delivered to the agreed-upon exchange point, where they were kept safe,” the intelligence agency said in a statement. “Per the agreements, the Russian side was responsible for ensuring the safety of our defenders. Simultaneously, Ukraine was not informed about the necessity of securing the airspace over the city of Belgorod during the specified period, as has been communicated in the past.”

Russia also did not inform Ukraine about how it planned to transport the prisoners, according to the directorate’s statement, adding that “landing a transport plane in a 30-kilometer combat zone cannot be considered safe and should be discussed by both parties, as it jeopardizes the entire exchange process.”

In an earlier statement, the Russian Defense Ministry said “the Ukrainian leadership knew very well that, according to established practice, today Ukrainian military personnel would be transported by military transport aircraft to the Belgorod airfield for exchange.”

The swap was supposed to take place at the Kolotilovka border checkpoint, which separates Russia’s Belgorod region from the Sumy region in Ukraine, the ministry added.

None of the claims, either about who was aboard or about the cause of the crash, could be independently verified.

A plume of smoke seen in a video of the plane crash as well as traces of damaging elements on the fuselage skin are consistent with an aircraft being shot down, according to analysis by the Conflict Intelligence Team, a Russian open-source intelligence group that has been tracking the hostilities in Ukraine since 2014.

The Russian Foreign Ministry accused Ukraine of committing “a terrorist act” and doubled down on the assertion that Ukraine was informed of the routes and means of transportation being used to position the prisoners for the trade.

“The attack on the plane was a deliberate and conscious action,” the Foreign Ministry said. “The terrorist attack clearly demonstrates the inability of the Kyiv regime to negotiate.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov requested an urgent U.N. Security Council meeting in connection with the crash.

The Ukrainian Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said in a statement early Wednesday that it was still analyzing reports about the crash.

“Before official statements or comments by authorized individuals or authorities are released, we urge the media and citizens to refrain from spreading unverified information,” it said. “Emphasizing that the enemy actively conducts information special operations against Ukraine aimed at destabilizing Ukrainian society.”

While the cause of the crash could not be confirmed, senior Russian officials, without providing evidence, said the plane was shot down by Ukrainian forces using either German or U.S.-made missiles.

Short video clips of the crash site published on Russian state media and Telegram channels showed scattered debris on a snowy field but little else from the scene.

One official, Andrei Kartapolov, chairman of the defense committee in Russia’s lower house of parliament, said that a second plane had narrowly escaped a similar disaster.

“There was the second Il-76 plane following, which was carrying about 80 more prisoners of war. It was rerouted in time,” Kartapolov said.

“The leadership of Ukraine was well aware of the impending exchange; they were informed about how the prisoners would be delivered,” Kartapolov added. “But the Il-76 plane was shot down by three missiles from either a Patriot or an Iris-T antiaircraft missile system made in Germany.”

The speaker of the Russian parliament, Vyacheslav Volodin, said lawmakers would hold their U.S. and German counterparts accountable.

“The defenseless pilots of our military transport plane who were conducting a humanitarian mission have been shot using American, German missiles,” Volodin said during a parliamentary session. “Lawmakers of these countries must realize their responsibility, where this is all leading.”

Belgorod region has served as a staging ground for the Russian forces since the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine and the regional capital, also called Belgorod, is the only major Russian city that has come under sustained assault with a recent increase in Ukrainian shelling. On Dec. 30, 25 people were killed in a rocket and missile attack there.

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Serhiy Morgunov in Lisbon and Isabelle Khurshudyan in Kyiv contributed to this report.

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