Russia accused Ukraine on Wednesday of deliberately shooting down a Russian military transport plane carrying 65 captured Ukrainian soldiers to a prisoner exchange, and a local official said all 74 people on board had been killed.
Russian state media said six Russian crew members and three guards were on the Ilyushin Il-76 military transport plane which was shot down near the Russian city of Belgorod near the Ukrainian border.
"It was absolutely deliberate. They knew very well that the plane was en route, where it was going and the operators of (Ukrainian) surface-to-air missile systems cannot mistake transport planes for military planes or helicopters as targets," Andrei Kartapolov, a lawmaker in Russia's parliament and a retired general, said in a TV interview with the SHOT outlet. "It was done deliberately to sabotage the prisoner exchange."
Kartapolov, who still has close links to the defense ministry, said the plane had been shot down by three missiles of either U.S. or German manufacture.
(Reuters)