The origin of the crash is still not known but the Kremlin blames Ukraine.
On Wednesday, a Russian Il-76 military transport plane crashed in the Belgorod region, bordering Ukraine.
Moscow says he was shot dead by Ukrainian forces.
“It is of course a completely monstrous act,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov reacted to Russian press agencies this Thursday.
According to Moscow, the plane was carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war for exchange, as well as the six crew members and three Russian servicemen.
All 74 people on board the plane died in the crash, according to Russian authorities.
“No one will be able to tell you what impact this will have on the prospects for extending the process” of the prisoner exchange, warned Dmitri Peskov.
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War in Ukraine: Russian military plane crashes with 65 Ukrainian prisoners on board
kyiv, for its part, neither confirmed nor denied that the aircraft had been shot down by Ukrainian weapons.
President Volodymyr Zelensky has called for an international investigation, and tasked several state agencies to conduct their own investigations into the crash.
He also did not attest that prisoners from his country were indeed among the victims.
No “reliable information” on passengers
According to Moscow, kyiv “knew” that the prisoners would be taken by plane to Belgorod, then to a meeting point at the border.
Ukrainian military intelligence (GUR) confirmed that a prisoner exchange was "planned" but ultimately did not take place, while claiming it "does not have reliable information" on the passengers of the Il-76 beaten down.
The GUR also assured that kyiv had "not been informed" of the need to secure the airspace in the area and did not know "the mode of transport of the prisoners", accusing Moscow of having deliberately "put them in hazard ".
More than 8,000 Ukrainians, including more than 1,600 civilians, are in Russian captivity, according to kyiv.
Russia claims that Ukrainian forces launched “two missiles” from “an anti-aircraft defense system” to shoot down the Il-76 military carrier and then “blame Russia”.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov promised to “clarify” the circumstances of the crash, with Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin ensuring for his part that “American and German missiles” were used to bring down the plane. aircraft.
Emergency meeting at the UN
In a press release published a few hours after the crash and without mentioning it directly, the Ukrainian army promised to continue to “destroy transport aircraft and control the airspace (…) including in the Belgorod-Kharkiv area” .
The Russian region is regularly targeted by Ukrainian missile and drone attacks due to its proximity to the border and in response to multiple Russian bombings of Ukraine.
At the request of Moscow, via the head of Russian diplomacy visiting New York, Sergei Lavrov, the UN Security Council is meeting urgently this Thursday.
The meeting is due to take place at 5 p.m. local time (10 p.m. GMT), the French presidency of the Council announced.