Giant Russian military plane crashes in fireball

A large Russian military plane crashed Wednesday morning in a massive fireball close to the Ukrainian border, with Russian authorities reporting 74 casualties.

The Ilyushin Il-76 military transport aircraft crashed near the Russian border city of Belgorod, Russian state news agencies reported, citing the ministry of defense. Moscow claimed that among the dead were 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war who were being transported to a prisoner exchange, though this has not been independently verified and Kyiv said it was checking the accuracy of the claim.

Two Ukrainian outlets — Ukrainska Pravda and RBC Ukraine — first reported that the Ukrainian Armed Forces downed the plane and that the aircraft could have been carrying missiles, citing an anonymous source. They later partly retracted the information, noting only that the freighter was capable of carrying missiles but saying nothing about what caused the crash. POLITICO was not able to independently verify the claims and counter-claims.

Social media footage shows the plane nosediving and shedding parts before the crash. Images from the crash site, posted on Telegram, depict debris scattered across a field. 

“This is new, fresh information; we will be looking into it,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told state media.  

The Belgorod regional governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, earlier said there was “an incident.” He later confirmed that there were no survivors of the wreck.

“The investigative team and emergency services personnel are working on the scene. I’ve changed my work schedule, and I am heading to the area,” he added.

The crash followed an alert about a possible incoming missile issued by Belgorod authorities an hour earlier. The alert was retracted 30 minutes later.

“Today, January 24, the exchange of prisoners between Russia and Ukraine was supposed to take place,” Andrii Yusov, a Ukrainian military intelligence official, told Radio Liberty. “I can state that the exchange planned for today is currently not taking place,” he said.

According to the official, Russian information that prisoners of war could have been on board is currently being investigated.

The Il-76, a four-engine, 45-ton capacity transporter, can use unprepared landing strips without any ground-handling facilities. It can also carry large numbers of airborne troops.

Sergey Goryashko is hosted at POLITICO under the EU-funded EU4FreeMedia residency program.

This article has been updated.