Following the recent Russian military plane crash leading to the death of all 74 people onboard, including 65 Ukrainian prisoners, the Russian Defense Ministry summoned Ukrainian forces accusing them of shooting down the military transport plane, this was after a video surfaced on Wednesday in which a massive ball of fire was seen erupting in a snowy, rural area.
According to reports, the plane was heading towards the Belgorod region from the Chkalovsky airfield in the Moscow region, and a prisoner-of-war swap was scheduled to take place at the Kolotilovka crossing on the Russian-Ukrainian border.
According to the Russian military, their intelligence reported the launch of two missiles from Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, which is connected to Russia’s Belgorod region. Before the crash, the governor of the region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, warned of a ‘missile alert.’
Although the incident occurred at 11 a.m. local time, the actual cause of the accident is not clear yet. However, soon after the incident, several firefighters, ambulances, and police rushed to the site of the incident in the Korochansky district of Belgorod.
The Russian ministry hasn’t provided any significant evidence for their claim as the spokesman for President Vladimir Putin, Dmitry Peskov said that he could not give his remarks on the crash due to a lack of evidence.
On the other hand, the Ukrainian officials did not confirm or deny any claims made by the Russian side; they concluded that they were still looking into the matter. The Ukrainian military intelligence spokesman, Andrii Yusov, confirmed to the media that the prisoner swap which was scheduled to happen on Wednesday was not going ahead. He added that the agency is checking whether Ukrainian POWs were on the plane.
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