Was the Russian military plane that crashed carrying Ukrainian prisoners?

Footage of a crashed military plane in Russia has been captured this morning, with the rumours that onboard were 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war. The Russian defence ministry confirmed that there were no survivors.

The Ilyushin Il-76 aircraft crashed in the city of Belgorod, approximately 40km north of the border with Ukraine, at around 11am local time. Since then, the news has spread that the aircraft was carrying prisoners captured during the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

However, despite the rumours, Ukraine assures that there were in fact no prisoners aboard the aircraft, and that the vehicle was actually transporting war weapons from one area of the country to another, specifically S-300 surface-to-air missiles.

Why did the aircraft crash? Was it shot down?

Twitter user Igor Sushko said on the social media platform that the aircraft did not crash but it was instead shot down by the Ukrainian Armed Forces. He wrote that “the Russian military transport plane carrying S-300 missiles, which are commonly used to attack civilians in Kharkiv, was shot down by the Ukrainian Armed Forces over Korocha in Belgorod region, Russia.”

However, he later tweeted that the “Report that Ukraine shot down the plane, originally from @pravda_eng‘s Ukrainian military sources, have been retracted for the time being, opening a distinct possibility it was the work of Russia’s own air defense.”

This is a breaking news story and will be updated...