The Military Intelligence Service of Ukraine said on Wednesday that Kyiv did not ask to provide protection of the airspace in the region of Belgorod in the south of Russia. where the Russian Il-76 military plane crashedas it was during previous exchanges of prisoners of war with Moscow, Reuters reports.

Russian law enforcement officers at the crash site of a military plane, on board of which there were probably Ukrainian prisoners of warPhoto: Pavlo Kolyadin / TASS / Profimedia Images

In a Telegram message, the services said that Russia’s claims that Ukraine shot down a military transport plane with 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war on board in the Belgorod region on Wednesday could be “a planned action aimed at destabilizing the situation in Ukraine and weakening international support for our state.” .

The department also said that they do not have reliable information about who was on board the downed Russian military transport plane.

“At the moment, we do not have reliable and complete information about who or how many people were on board the plane,” the intelligence agency said, according to AFP.

A video posted on Telegram linked to Russian security services Baza and verified by Reuters shows a large plane falling to the ground near the village of Yablonovo in the Belgorod region and exploding.

Russia said a total of 74 people were killed, including six Russian crew members and three Russian soldiers.

In its statement on Telegram, the Ukrainian military intelligence reported that the exchange of Ukrainian and Russian prisoners of war was indeed planned and that Kyiv fulfilled all the conditions, but Russia did not report the number of planes with prisoners and the routes of their transportation. .

“At the same time, 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 it was done repeatedly before,” the agency said. added

Instead, Russia demanded an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on Wednesday after the plane crash with Ukrainian prisoners.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a press conference at the UN that Russia had asked to hold a meeting at 20:00 Kyiv time.