The U.N. Security Council is to hold an emergency meeting Thursday after a Russian military transport plane went down near the Russia-Ukraine border, as both Russian and Ukrainian officials call for an investigation.
The Russian side accused Ukraine of shooting down the plane that crashed Wednesday in the Belgorod region. Russia said the plane was carrying 74 people, including 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war who were to be part of a prisoner swap.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who was already in New York this week for meetings at the United Nations, accused Ukraine of carrying out a “terrorist attack.”
“The Ukrainian prisoners of war were transported to the Belgorod region in order to conduct yet another swap that was agreed between Moscow and Kyiv,” Lavrov told reporters. “Instead of this, the Ukrainian side launched an air defense missile from the Kharkiv region, it targeted the airplane and was a fatal strike.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his government was insisting on an international investigation.
“All facts must be established,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly address Wednesday. “As much as possible, given that the aircraft crashed in Russian territory that is beyond our control.”
Zelenskyy said Russia was “playing with the lives of Ukrainian prisoners of war, the feelings of their relatives, and the emotions of our society.”
Ukraine’s military did not directly mention the plane crash but said Russia had carried out attacks linked to Russian military aircraft landing in Belgorod, and that Ukraine would target Russian military planes believed to be carrying missiles for future attacks.
Ukraine’s air force said Thursday that Russia’s overnight attacks included four missiles fired from the Belgorod region. The Ukrainian air force also said Ukraine’s air defenses downed 11 of the 14 drones launched by Russia.
Video of the crash posted on social media showed a plane falling from the sky on its side before exploding into a massive fireball as it hit the ground in Russia’s snowy, rural, western Belgorod region.
Kharkiv borders Belgorod, which is Russian territory. The two sides have carried out numerous prisoner swaps since Russia invaded Ukraine nearly two years ago.
VOA UN Correspondent Margaret Besheer contributed to this report. Some material for this report was provided by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
