Giant Russian military plane crashes in fireball
A large Russian military plane crashed Wednesday morning in a massive fireball close to the Ukrainian border.
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.
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. Russian officials said the aircraft was transporting dozens of Ukrainian prisoners of war for exchange. 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.
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“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.”
“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 The alert was retracted 30 minutes later.
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.