All 74 people aboard were killed, including 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war headed for a swap.
Russia has called for an urgent UN Security Council meeting after the downing of a transport plane near the border with Ukraine on Wednesday.
Moscow accused Kyiv of shooting it down, saying all 74 people aboard were killed, including 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war headed for a swap.
Russia has offered no evidence about the crash and Ukraine has said it was looking into it but did not immediately provide any information. Instead, it cautioned against sharing “unverified information.”.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Russia wanted to discuss the circumstances of a plane crash and said the full facts were still being verified:
“Ukrainian prisoners of war were transported to the Belgorod region in order to carry out the next exchange agreed between Moscow and Kyiv. Instead of this exchange taking place, the Ukrainian side attacked this plane with anti-aircraft missiles from the Kharkiv region, which became fatal.”
Since Russia’s invasion almost two years ago, Moscow and Kyiv have traded conflicting accusations, and establishing the facts has often been difficult, both because of the constraints of a war zone and because each side tightly controls information.
Lavrov also stated that Russia was not concerned if foreign media didn’t believe the details surrounding the crash and added that Russia had nothing to discuss with the United States.
He also called speculation that Russia intended to attack Europe “nonsense.”