Russia says military jet carrying 65 Ukrainian POWs crashed near Ukraine

A Russian military plane with 74 people aboard, including 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war, crashed on Wednesday in Russia’s Belgorod region near the border with Ukraine, Russia’s Defense Ministry said.

There were no survivors, according to Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of the Belgorod region.

It wasn’t immediately clear what caused the crash, though Russia accused Ukraine of shooting down the transport plane. Ukraine's authorities have not commented.

USA TODAY could not confirm who was aboard the plane.

Russia's Defense Ministry said it was still investigating the crash, which came as Ukraine was marking the 700th day since the start of Moscow's full-scale invasion.

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Late Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said a major Russian missile attack that apparently was devised to overwhelm Ukraine’s air defenses had killed 18 people and injured 130.

Russia’s onslaught, which included targets in the capital Kyiv and second-largest city Kharkiv, was the heaviest in weeks and lent weight to Zelenskyy’s appeals for Western allies to provide more military aid. A fresh military aid package from the U.S., by far Ukraine’s single biggest weapons provider, has stalled in Congress.

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Since the outbreak of the war, Russia and Ukraine have exchanged prisoners of war. In early January they exchanged over 200 in what may have been the largest such exchange since the fighting started.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Russian military plane crash: 65 Ukrainian POWs on board