Ukraine updates: Russian military transport plane crashes

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Moscow of "playing with the lives of Ukrainian prisoners of war."

His remarks come after a Russian military plane crashed on Wednesday in the Belgorod region near the border with Ukraine, killing all 74 people aboard, including 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war headed for a swap.

"It is obvious that the Russians are playing with the lives of Ukrainian prisoners, with the feelings of their relatives and with the emotions of our society," Zelenskyy said in an evening address.

Russia's Defense Ministry accused Ukraine of shooting down the aircraft.

Zelenskyy did not confirm or deny Moscow's claims but called for an international investigation into what brought down the plane.

The UN Security Council will meet on Thursday to discuss the incident involving a Russian military transport plane that crashed in Russia's Belgorod region near Ukraine.

France, the current holder of the rotating presidency of the Security Council, confirmed the appointment, a day later than Moscow had hoped.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is in New York and on Wednesday asked for an immediate emergency session of the council to discuss the crash, which he called a "terrorist attack."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, meanwhile, has canceled a regional trip and events linked to his birthday pending clarification of the crash, the RBK Ukraine news outlet reported. He has not yet commented on the incident.

Russia said 74 people aboard the plane were killed, including 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war headed for a swap.

Czech football team Slavia Prague canceled a warm-up game with Slovan Bratislava, because the Slovakian side played an earlier friendly match against Russian team Dynamo Moscow.

"It seems we have a different view of the war [against Ukraine]," said Jaroslav Tvrdik, the chairman of Slavia's board.

The club said it would play another Slovak team, Zlate Moravce, on February 4 instead, and would donate the proceeds to Ukraine.

Slovan meanwhile argued it didn't violate any regulation by playing Dynamo.

Director general Ivan Kmotrik Jr. said the club rejected accusations that it "legitimized a military conflict in any way."

"We're against any war," he said. "We are supporters of the fact that sport should unite and not divide. War is happening in many places in the world and the athletes are not to blame for where they come from," the general director of the club said in a statement.

When UEFA and its president Aleksander Ceferin tried in September to reintegrate Russia's national under-17 teams to its competitions, it prompted a backlash from some European member federations who refused to let their youth teams play Russia.

The proposal was withdrawn within two weeks by UEFA.

Unlike football, most professional sports have not completely excluded Russian participation since the invasion of Ukraine, instead opting for smaller sanctions like demanding Russian or Belarussian athletes compete under a neutral flag.

For friendly matches like the ones in question, teams are broadly at liberty to pick their own opponents.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has called for an emergency UN Security Council session on Wednesday after a military plane came down near the Russian city of Belgorod.

Russia accused Ukraine of deliberately shooting down the Ilyushin Il-76 aircraft, killing all 74 people it said were on board.

Lavrov wants the Security Council to discuss the matter later today and called it a "terrorist attack."

Ukraine did not immediately confirm or deny it, but its military intelligence said it had no information about who was on the plane when it went down.

Russia said 74 people aboard the plane were killed, including 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war headed for a swap.

Ukraine's military intelligence it does not have reliable information about who was on board of the Russian Ilyushin Il-76 aircraft that crashed in the Belgorod region on Wednesday morning.

"Currently, we do not have reliable and comprehensive information about who exactly was on board the plane and how many," a statement read.

Earlier Russia's defense ministry said the plane was carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war who were to be swapped. Another six crew members and three Russian soldiers were also on board.

Ukrainian intelligence said it was ready for the prisoner exchange but claimed that it was cancelled.

It also said that the "Ukrainian side was not informed about the need to ensure the safety of the airspace in the area of the city of Belgorod in a certain period of time, as was repeatedly done in the past."

Russia accused Ukraine of shooting down the military transport plane, and claimed that Ukraine was aware of the plane's plans and destination.

A Ukrainian government body responsible for issues linked to prisoners of war said earlier that it was probing Russia's claims.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said Budapest will rapidly process Sweden's delayed accession to NATO, now that fellow hold-out Turkey has voted in favor.

He will urge parliament to vote on the matter "at the first possible opportunity," Orban said.

It comes a day after the Turkish parliament has given its approval to Sweden’s membership of the Western military alliance. Turkey’s approval left Hungary as the only NATO country still to ratify Swedish membership.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who spoke with Orban on Wednesday, said he welcomed the Hungarian leader's "clear support." 

"I look forward to the ratification as soon as parliament reconvenes," Stoltenberg wrote on social media. 

The Hungarian parliament's next session was due to be held on February 27, but an unscheduled special session could be held before then. 

Orban did not set out any timelines for Hungary's decision.

Sweden and Finland applied to join NATO in 2022 in response to Russia's war in Ukraine.

Finland joined the Western military alliance in April last year, but Sweden's membership was delayed as Turkey and Hungary raised objections, holding up a process that requires unanimity among NATO members.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has urged European nations to pledge more weapons to Ukraine, while saying that his own country was not big enough to easily take on the burden of becoming Kyiv's main supporter should the US stop its assistance.

"The contributions that European nations have earmarked for 2024 so far are not big enough," Scholz told weekly newspaper Die Zeit in an interview published on Wednesday, calling on European partners to review how they could "significantly expand" their support.

Scholz also said he was "rather irritated" at criticism that Germany was not supporting Ukraine enough, saying his country was already "doing more than all other EU nations, much much more."

But, he said, "it would not be good news if Germany, should the US drop off as a supporter, were to become the biggest supporter of Ukraine at the end," adding that his country, was, "as [former Chancellor] Helmut Schmidt once said, only a medium-sized power."

Scholz was referring to the current blockade of US funding to Ukraine, which has been vital to the country's defense, as Republicans refuse to approve new budget outlays until the Democrat government takes tough action against illegal migration.

According to estimates from the IFW Kiel think tank in Germany, German military aid to Ukraine since just before Russia's invasion is worth well under half that sent by the US, with no other country, in turn, having provided half as much as Germany. This is in overall terms; smaller countries near Ukraine like Latvia, Estonia and Norway have contributed far more as a share of their economic output than either the US or Germany. 

Germany itself has supplied Ukraine with more than half of the known weapons coming from Europe, but is currently under pressure to send German-made Taurus cruise missiles.

Scholz's refusal so far to do so is generally attributed to a fear that the conflict in Ukraine could escalate if the Taurus missiles are used for strikes on Russian territory.

Russia's Defense Ministry has accused Ukraine of shooting down a military transport plane over the Belgorod region that was carrying dozens of Ukrainian POWs on their way to a prisoner swap.

Russian authorities have said there were no survivors among the 74 people on board the Ilyushin Il-76 aircraft, who they said included 65 captured Ukrainian soliders, six crew and three escorts.

State media have published a list of the Ukrainian prisoners Russia says were on board the plane.

The Defense Ministry called it a "terrorist act" carried out by Ukrainian forces stationed in the Kharkiv border region.

"The Ukrainian leadership was well aware that, in accordance with established practice, the Ukrainian servicemen to be exchanged would be transported by military transport aircraft to Belgorod aerodrome today," it said.

The Russian allegations could not be independently confirmed.

Ukrainian human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets, who is among officials responsible for prisoner exchanges, said his office was investigating.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said he is still talking with the German government about obtaining German-made Taurus cruise missiles to aid in fighting off the Russian invasion.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has so far rejected supplying Taurus missiles to Ukraine, apparently fearing an escalation of the conflict if German missiles were used to attack Russian territory. 

However, in an interview with news outlets Bild, Welt.tv and Politico, Kuleba sought to address those fears.

"We don't need a Taurus to attack Moscow," Kuleba said, insisting that the missiles would be used only to strike Russian military infrastructure on occupied Ukrainian territory.

Western observers remain uncertain how Russia will react to such attacks, however, as it has claimed occupied areas to be Russian territory.

Ukraine remains heavily dependent on Western military aid as Moscow's full-scale invasion has entered its 700th day.

Taurus missiles, which are equipped with stealth technology, have an official range of over 500 kilometers (300 miles).

Russia's State Duma, the lower house of parliament, has passed the first stage of a bill that will allow the state to seize the property of people convicted of "discrediting" or spreading "false information" about the Russian army.

The measure could notably be used to confiscate property from people who have left the country and have criticized Russia's war in Ukraine, but who rely on rent revenue from apartments in Russia.

The bill has passed in the first of three required readings by 395 votes to 3.

"Discrediting" the armed forces — which in Russia can mean referring to Moscow's invasion of Ukraine as an invasion rather than as a "special military operation" —  is already punishable with a lengthy jail term under laws introduced in March 2022. 

A Russian military transport plane carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war on their way for a prisoner exchange has crashed over Russia's Belgorod region, the Defense Ministry in Moscow said.

According to the TASS state news agency, there were also six Russian crew members and three escorts on board the Ilyushin Il-76 aircraft.

It was not immediately clear what caused the crash, which occurred around 11 a.m. Moscow time (0800 UTC). 

The governor of Russia's Belgorod region said everyone onboard the military transport plane had died in the crash.

A special military commission was on the way to the crash site near the border with Ukraine, the ministry said.

Ukrainian media initially cited military sources as saying that Ukrainian forces downed the plane and that it was transporting missiles, but later corrected their reports, saying the information was unconfirmed.

Mykhailo Podolyak, a Ukrainian presidential adviser, told Reuters news ageny that "Comments will come a little later. Time is needed to
clarify all the data."

The Kremlin said in response to a reporter's question that it was looking into the situation.

The Belgorod region has come under frequent attack from Ukraine in recent months. 

tj/sms (AP, AFP, DPA, Reuters)