A Russian SU-25 fighter plane crashed on Thursday in Russia's Belgorod region near the border with Ukraine and the pilot was killed, the Russian defence ministry said.
The cause of the crash was a "technical malfunction", according to preliminary information, the TASS news agency cited the ministry as saying. The plane crashed in an uninhabited area and there were no reports of other damage, it said.
Earlier, in a post on the Telegram messenger app, Belgorod's governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said that emergency services and investigators were on the scene of the crash near the town of Valyuki, and that the cause was being investigated.
Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine's Kharkiv region, has repeatedly come under fire since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine a year ago.
(Reporting by ReutersEditing by Gareth Jones and Mark Trevelyan)
