A Russian Il-76 military aircraft has crashed in the Belgorod region.
Russian channels report that the Russian Ministry of Defense made the following statement:
“The IL-76 crashed at about 11.00 Moscow time in the Belgorod region. On board the fallen Il-76 there were 65 captured military personnel of the Ukrainian Armed Forces transported to the Belgorod region for exchange, 6 crew members and 3 accompanying persons. A VKS commission flew to the crash site of the Il-76 in the Belgorod region to establish the causes of the disaster.”
Fuller video of the IL-76 crash. There appears to be a smoke cloud in the sky at 00:20.
Russian sources immediately proposed a theory that the plane carried Ukrainian P.O.W.s, but so far, there's no indication of that. Ukrainian side says the plane carried S-300 missiles. pic.twitter.com/Er18uMO0Ok
— WarTranslated (Dmitri) (@wartranslated) January 24, 2024
In the full video from local residents, you can see a trail of smoke in the sky, similar to that left after the explosion of an anti-aircraft missile.
According to Ukrainska Pravda’s sources, the plane has been shot down by the Ukrainian military.
Andrei Kartopolov, head of the Defense Committee of the Russian State Duma, said that another Il-76 with 80 POWs on board was flying after the downed Il. It was turned around. And the first Il was allegedly “shot down by three Patriot or IRIS-T missiles”.