Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has accused Russia of "playing with the lives of Ukrainian prisoners" after Moscow blamed Kyiv for a plane crash that reportedly killed 65 Ukrainian POWs.

On January 24, an Ilyushin Il-76 strategic airlifter was downed near Yablonovo in Russia’s Belgorod Region, near the border with Ukraine. Within an hour, Moscow announced that the plane was carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war, six Russian crew members, and three guards. Russia says the flight was intended for a prisoner exchange.

Investigators have retrieved the flight recorders from a Russian military transport plane on January 25, according to Russian media reports, but have yet to comment on what they contain.

The Ukraine's Main Directorate of Intelligence (HUR) quickly confirmed the presence of the POWs and lambasted Russia for not informing Kyiv of the presence of the prisoners in what is in effect a combat zone that is closed to commercial aviation as Belgorod is only 40km from the border and suffers regular shelling.

Amidst this controversy, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, without directly referencing the crash, stated their intent to target any Russian military transport aircraft suspected of carrying missiles, particularly near the border, reports AP. 

However, since the first reports the story has become confused as conflicting evidence emerged and others have denied there were any Ukraine servicemen on board. Both Moscow and Kyiv have accused each other of using the incident to score political points.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was fast to react and demanded an international inquiry to establish clear facts surrounding the incident in a video address.

“Russians are playing with the lives of Ukrainian prisoners, with the feelings of their relatives and with the emotions of our society,” said but without definitively confirming or denying the presence of POWs aboard the aircraft.

In response, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also condemned the downing of the plane, which Ukraine admits it shot down, as a "monstrous act" and suggested that an international inquiry might be necessary to investigate the actions of the “Kyiv regime”.

The picture was further confused as, unlike HUR, the Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence said it could not confirm that the aircraft was hit by Ukraine’s armed forces nor did it comment on the presence of POWs. Moscow responded that Russia's air force recorded the launch of two missiles from the Liptsy area of Ukraine's Kharkiv region.

Dmytro Lubinets, Ukraine's human rights ombudsman, mentioned on national television, "We haven't seen any indication that such a large number of people was on that plane, Ukrainian citizens or not," reports AP.

The trading of accusations between Russia and Ukraine has shed little light on what happened in Yablonovo and who was on board the plane.

Following the downing of the plane, news outlet Ukrainska Pravda was the first to report the incident and quoted an armed forces source stating that Kyiv had shot down the aircraft. The same source was very specific and said that the plane had not been carrying POWs, but it was transporting S300 missiles instead. The outlet later corrected its report, stating that the source had not been corroborated.

One of the few concrete facts known about the Il-76 plane was that it had not been used for prisoner swaps before and that it had arrived in Belgorod from the Middle East where it reportedly had been sent to collect arms. Also flight tracking data posted on social media show the plane was heading away from Belgorod in a north-eastern direction, away from the Ukrainian border, raising the question of where it was going if it was supposed to be meeting the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) to swap prisoners. Moreover, as Belgorod is only 40km from the border, some have asked why a plane was needed at all, given the short ride to the border.

The authenticity of a list of Ukrainian prisoners of war who were killed in the Il-76 crash, published by Kremlin-controlled RT chief Margarita Simonyan, and one of Russia’s most prominent spin-doctors, remains unconfirmed. Some reports, including from Kyiv’s UNIAN news agency, suggest that at least 18 individuals on the list of the dead have already been exchanged in earlier swaps and are alive and well in Ukraine. Ukrainian outlet Suspilne reported that the majority of the names on the list were confirmed POWs, but could not confirm that they were on the plane or potentially part of a prisoner exchange. HUR admitted that it did not have “reliable and comprehensive information” about the number or identity of the plane’s passengers.

AP reported that it was also  unable to independently verify the identities of those on board or the cause of the plane's crash. The head of Ukraine's air force dismissed Russia's claims as "rampant ... propaganda," though he did not directly respond to the specific allegations by AP.

Kyiv later confirmed that a scheduled exchange of prisoners was set for January 24, but did not take place. According to HUR, Kyiv had not received any prior warnings about airspace safety near Belgorod, something that had happened "repeatedly" in the past, suggesting that the downing may have been a "deliberate" move by Russia to "create a threat to the life and safety of the prisoners".

HUR intelligence agency also confusingly claimed that Russian POWs were taken to the exchange location, but no exchange happened.

Later, Kyiv-based digital outlet New Voice of Ukraine reported that Ukraine’s military is “sure” that there were no prisoners on the plane, citing an anonymous source. The source stated that the plane is regularly used for transporting S300 missiles “at least three times a day”, which tallies with the other reports that say the plane had just arrived from the Middle East, including Egypt, where it had been picking up munitions. According to other unconfirmed reports, the plane was taking off from Belgorod heading north, away from the city and the direction of Ukraine. Both of these claims remain unverified, with Russian outlet The Bell stating that the plane flying from the Middle East was a different Il-76.

Finally, observers have noted that photos from the scene do not show any casualties on the ground or bodies amongst the wreckage, even though the aircraft had only just taken off and was still at a low altitude when it was hit. Following the downing of the Malaysian MH17 commercial flight in 2020, the first responders found the bodies of victims strewn around the wreckage, but the footage of the wreckage of the Il-76 flight shows no casualties from the total of 74 people that were reportedly on board. Conventional wisdom would suggest that there would be a small scatter, and bodies should therefore be visible at the crash site.