MOSCOW, February 23. /TASS/. A Russian Su-25 ground attack plane crashed while returning to its airfield in the Belgorod Region, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported on Thursday.

"A Su-25 plane of the Russian Aerospace Forces crashed while returning to its airfield in the Belgorod Region after accomplishing a combat mission. The pilot died," the ministry said in a statement.

The plane crashed in a desolate place and there is no destruction on the ground, it specified.

"According to preliminary data, a technical fault is a likely cause of the crash," the Defense Ministry said.

As a representative of the Belgorod Region’s Valuyki district ambulance station specified to TASS, the dead pilot’s body was found and a military helicopter arrived to transport it. An ambulance team is working at the crash site. As an on-duty doctor said, the plane was flown by one pilot.

The Su-25 is an armored subsonic all-weather jet attack aircraft designed to provide close support to ground forces over the battlefield, destroy ground installations and low-speed aerial targets. The Su-25 was engineered by the Sukhoi Design Bureau in the first half of the 1970s.