Russia’s Investigative Committee released video on Friday that it said showed Ukrainian prisoners of war boarding a Russian military transport plane that crashed on Wednesday, Sky News reported.

The Russian committee shared a video with an explanatory text: “Images of Ukrainian prisoners of war boarding the Il-76 plane, which crashed in the Belgorod region as a result of a terrorist attack.”

Both the Investigative Committee of Russia and President Vladimir Putin accused Ukraine of hitting the plane with an anti-aircraft missile.

Kyiv has not confirmed whether it was involved or whether prisoners of war were on board, but Ukrainian authorities have cast doubt on the death toll, saying only five bodies had been taken to the Belgorod morgue.

Footage released by Moscow on Friday evening shows cars approaching the plane on the runway of the snow-covered airfield. The location is not specified, the video has no sound.

People are then seen exiting the vehicles to prepare for boarding. Only one line of explanatory text indicates that it will be Ukrainian military personnel boarding a military transport, Sky News notes.

Russia says identification documents and tattooed body parts were found at the crash site

Russia said on Friday it had seized Ukrainian identification documents and tattooed human remains from the site where a Russian military plane, which Moscow says was carrying Ukrainian prisoners of war, crashed two days ago near Russia’s border with Ukraine. Reuters reports.

Moscow blames Kyiv for shooting down a Russian Il-76 military jet in Russia’s Belgorod region on Wednesday, killing 74 people, including 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war who were on their way to be exchanged for Russian prisoners of war.

Ukraine has neither confirmed nor denied that its forces shot down the plane and said there was no evidence of who was on board. Kyiv denies some aspects of Moscow’s version and calls for an international investigation of the case.

Russia’s Investigative Committee, Russia’s judicial body tasked with investigating the most serious crimes, said on Friday that human remains had been collected and sent for genetic testing, and some of them had distinctive tattoos like those worn by captured Ukrainian soldiers whom Russia asked .

The Russian Investigative Committee also reported that among the collected evidence were also “documents of Ukrainian servicemen who died as a result of the disaster, confirming their identities, as well as accompanying documents of the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service.”

Russia is the only one with access to the crash site. Reuters notes that it has not been able to independently verify the information provided by Russian authorities about what happened and what evidence was allegedly found. Russia’s Investigative Committee said on Thursday that its preliminary investigations showed that the plane was shot down by a surface-to-air missile fired from Ukraine.

Ukraine rejected Russia’s claim that it had been warned that a plane carrying Ukrainian prisoners of war was flying over the Belgorod region at that time.

Kyiv also pointed to discrepancies in a list of names of 65 Ukrainians on board allegedly published by Russian media, saying some of them belonged to soldiers who had already returned to the country during a previous exchange.

Kremlin spokesman Dmytro Peskov said on Friday that he was not aware of the publication of the official list. He also told Russian journalists that he had no information about what would happen to the remains (presumably Ukrainian prisoners) and whether they would be handed over to Ukraine.

When asked whether Russia will provide the UN Security Council and other international organizations with evidence that Ukraine was involved in the downing of the plane or that its authorities knew who was on board the plane, Dmytro Peskov replied: “I have nothing to add. this stage. Investigators are working and after receiving all the necessary information, decisions will be made.”

Russian state media reported that the plane’s black boxes had been sent to a special Defense Ministry laboratory in Moscow and that investigators were already examining them.

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