BELGOROD, January 24. /TASS/. No civilians were injured in the crash of an Ilyushin-76 (IL-76) plane in the Korocha district of the Belgorod Region, Nikolay Nesterov, head of the district administration, wrote on his Telegram channel.
"A transport plane has crashed. It went down in a field, but no local residents were injured. An investigation is currently underway," Nesterov wrote.
The head of the local administration called on residents to trust only official sources of information.
An IL-76 military transport plane, which was carrying Ukrainian POWs for an exchange, crashed in the Belgorod Region at about 11:00 a.m. Moscow time (8:00 a.m. GMT). According to the Russian Defense Ministry, 65 Ukrainian service members, three escorts and six crew members were on board. The causes of the crash are being investigated, and a commission of the Russian Aerospace Forces has flown to the crash site.