International Desk

Russia said Wednesday that an IL-76 military transport plane carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war had crashed in the western Belgorod region, bordering Ukraine, reports AFP.

Unverified videos on social media showed a large plane, purportedly in the Belgorod region, falling from the sky on its side before crashing in a fireball.

"At around 11 a.m. Moscow time (0800 GMT), an IL-76 aircraft crashed in the Belgorod region during a routine flight," Moscow's defense ministry told Russian news agencies.

"On board were 65 captured Ukrainian army servicemen being transported to the Belgorod region for exchange, six crew members and three escorts," it said.

AFP was not able to immediately verify Russia's claim, and the fate of the passengers was not immediately clear.

Vyacheslav Volodin, the top lawmaker in Russia's lower house of parliament, said the plane had been "shot down" by Kyiv and blamed Western missiles.

"They shot their own soldiers in the air. Their own," Volodin told lawmakers in a plenary session. "Our pilots, who were carrying out a humanitarian mission, were shot down."

The crash occurred in the Korochansky district, northeast of the region's capital, regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Telegram.

"Now an investigation team and emergency services are working on the site. I have changed my working schedule and travelled to the district," Gladkov said.

Gladkov had earlier announced a missile alert over the region, but it was not clear if the two events were connected.

In Kyiv, local media initially cited sources in the Ukrainian military as saying that its army downed the plane, and that it was transporting missiles.

But that claim was later retracted.

The issue of prisoners of war is sensitive in both countries.

In 2022, Russia and Ukraine accused each other of carrying out deadly bombardments on a jail holding dozens of captured Ukrainian servicemen in Kremlin-controlled Olenivka, in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk region.

Both Moscow and Kyiv blamed each other for the incident, which President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called a "Russian war crime."