Information about the plane crash is still conflicting. We collected the answers to three key questions.
New information has leaked out about the transport plane that crashed in Belgorod, Russia, under unclear circumstances on Wednesday.
The Russian Investigative Committee released a video from the crash site on Friday, which you can watch below. The footage can shock you.
The news agency Reuters has confirmed the location of the video, but there is no independent information available about the shooting time.
The video allegedly shows parts and debris of the wreckage of the cargo plane that crashed in Belgorod on Wednesday in a field. The images also show the hand of the blurred corpse and red splashes left in the open field.
For this story, gathered the most important information about what is known about the plane crash now.
Where did the plane crash?
According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, Ilyushin’s Il-76 transport plane had taken off from the Chkalovsky airbase in the Moscow region and was on its way to Belgorod. Anti-aircraft missiles were fired at it from the village of Lypts in Ukraine. The plane crashed in Jablonovo, Belgorod region.
In the animation below, you can see the route that the Russian Ministry of Defense claims the plane flew.
Why did the plane fall?
The Russian Investigative Committee claims that Ukraine shot down the transport plane with an anti-aircraft missile from the Ukrainian side. According to the committee, a criminal investigation has been launched into the matter.
Russia also said on Friday that it would have taken the crashed plane’s black boxes for examination. The black boxes refer to the devices that record information about the aircraft’s events.
On Wednesday, the Ukrainian newspaper Ukrainska Pravda published the news that Ukraine had shot down a Russian plane. The news reported that the Russian plane was carrying S-300 anti-aircraft missiles. Later, the Ukrainian newspaper added to the news that the matter has not been confirmed.
Ukraine has not directly denied shooting down the plane.
What was the plane carrying?
Russia claimed on Wednesday that there were 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war on board, all of whom died in the crash.
The Russian committee investigating the crash said today that they had found body parts at the scene with tattoos used by Ukrainian prisoners of war. In addition, the committee claimed to have found identification documents of Ukrainian prisoners.
Ukraine has admitted its intentions to exchange prisoners, but has not confirmed that there were Ukrainian prisoners on the plane. In addition, the number of victims reported by Russia has been questioned.
According to information from the Ukrainian intelligence service, only five people were transported from the area of the crash site to a nearby morgue, US media CNN told last night.
Ukraine demands an independent international investigation into the plane crash. President Volodymyr Zelenskyi has accused Russia of irresponsible treatment of Ukrainian prisoners of war.
Source: Reuters