A Russian military transport plane has crashed in the border region of Belgorod, according to Russia’s defence ministry, killing all 74 people on board. The ministry said the aircraft was carrying 65 Ukrainian PoWs who were to be swapped. The ministry added that onboard the Ilyushin Il-76 were also six crew and three Russian servicemen.
Ukraine has neither confirmed nor denied that it hit the plane but said Moscow had created a “deliberate threat to the life and safety” of its PoWs by failing to warn Kyiv to deconflict the airspace before the swap. The statement followed a now retracted Ukrainskaya Pravda report, which claimed that the military had shot down the jet.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, called for full clarity over the crash. Zelenskiy said in his nightly video broadcast: “It is clear that the Russians are playing with the lives of Ukrainian prisoners, the feelings of their loved ones and the emotions of our society.”
A drone attack on Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Odesa injured one person and started a fire, the regional governor said. Writing on the Telegram messaging app, the governor said the attack had damaged housing in the city.
The UK defence secretary Grant Shapps said its allies needed to “step up” the amount of military aid given to Ukraine. Writing in Politico, Shapps said: “Ukraine has done an unbelievable job of repelling its invader. It has retaken 50 per cent of the territory stolen by Russia … but Kyiv needs more support – and not just from the UK.”
The finance minister of Germany has said it can’t keep up Ukraine’s defence capabilities on its own in the long term and that others will need to increase bilateral contributions.
Viktor Orbán has said he will urge the Hungarian parliament to sign off on Sweden’s Nato bid “at the first possible opportunity”, as diplomats said Hungary’s allies were “exasperated” by the country’s foot-dragging. Sweden applied to join Nato in May 2022, but its accession was delayed as Turkey and Hungary strung out the ratification process.
Ukraine’s foreign ministry has called out US TV network HBO for casting a Serbian actor it says backs the Russian invasion of Ukraine in the next season of hit show The White Lotus. Milos Bikovic was given Russian citizenship in 2021 and was personally honoured by Vladimir Putin for his contribution to Russian arts.
