(Dan Tri) – Russia accused Ukraine of shooting down Moscow’s IL-76 transport carrying 74 people, including 65 prisoners of war who were Kiev soldiers.

The moment the Russian transport exploded (Photo: Telegram).

On January 24, the Russian Ministry of Defense accused Kiev of shooting down Moscow’s IL-76 transport plane when it was carrying 74 people, including 6 crew members, 3 accompanying people and 65 prisoners of war who were Ukrainian soldiers.

Russia confirmed that all 74 people on board the plane died after it crashed in the Belgorod region near the Ukrainian border.

Location of the plane crash (Graphic: Sputnik).

The Russian Ministry of Defense said that Moscow’s radar detected that Ukraine launched two missiles at the time the transport crashed.

`The plane was attacked by Ukrainian forces from Liptsy, Kharkiv region using an anti-aircraft missile system,` Russia accused.

The IL-76 crashed while carrying Ukrainian soldiers to the border area to exchange prisoners with Russia.

According to the previously reached agreement, the prisoner exchange is expected to take place on the same afternoon of January 24 at the Kolotilovka checkpoint on the Russia-Ukraine border.

Russia said that Ukraine knew clearly that the prisoners would be taken to Belgorod for exchange, but the incident still happened.

Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev called the IL-76 plane crash the result of `internal political conflict between the elites in Ukraine`.

Viktor Bondarev, Chairman of the Defense Committee of the Russian Federation Council (Senate), said the IL-76 crew had time to report to the command station that the transport had suffered `external impact`.

Mr. Bondarev said he had no doubts that the plane was shot down.

Russian parliamentarian Andrey Kartapolov accused Kiev of knowing about the upcoming prisoner exchange but still deliberately attacked the plane.

Mr. Kartapolov said the parties were then preparing to exchange prisoners in the form of `exchanging 192 for 192`.

According to expert Andrei Koshkin, a retired Russian colonel, in the last minutes, the IL-76 crew made great efforts to fly the burning transport far away from the Yablonovo residential area.

`The plane crashed in a field. The crew discovered the plane was in distress in the air but tried to fly it to an unpopulated place to reduce the number of victims,` he predicted.

Russian plane carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war crashed

Previously, Ukrainska Pravda quoted a source from the Ukrainian armed forces as saying that today’s crash of the Russian plane IL-76 in the Belgorod region appeared to be `committed by the Kiev side`.

Sources in the Ukrainian General Staff said the plane was shot down when it was believed to be carrying S-300 anti-aircraft missiles.

Ukraine has not officially commented on the accusations from Russia, but said they will review the relevant information.