Russia-Ukraine war live: No survivors after military plane that Russia says was carrying Ukrainian PoWs crashes in Belgorod | Ukraine

The governor of Russia’s Belgorod region said on Wednesday that everyone onboard a military transport plane that crashed in the region earlier on Wednesday had died, Reuters reports.

Russia’s defence ministry said earlier that 74 people had been onboard the Il-76 transport plane, including 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war that were to be exchanged for Russian captives.

Luke Harding

Ukrainian news outlet Ukrainskaya Pravda has withdrawn its claim that Ukraine shot down the Russian Ilyushin plane, which crashed this morning in Belgorod. It quoted sources in Ukraine’s general staff who said the military aircraft was carrying S-300 missiles. It has now added a correction saying that the sources did not “indicate” Ukrainian involvement

Luke Harding

Sources in Ukraine’s general staff say its armed forces shot down the Russian Ilyushin-76 military plane which crashed this morning in Belgorod, killing 63 people on board. According to Ukrainskaya Pravda newspaper, quoting defence sources, the plane was delivering S-300 anti-aircraft missiles used in recent devastating attacks on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city. Eighteen people died in a wave of Russian strikes yesterday, including a nine-year-0ld girl and her mother, buried under rubble in their Kharkiv apartment.

Russia’s defence ministry claimed that the flight was carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war, who were about to be exchanged. They were killed, together with 6 Russian crew and “three accompanying persons”, the Moscow news agency Tass reported.

Russia says Ukrainian prisoners of war were on board the Russian military plane that crashed on Wednesday morning, the AP reports.

Six crew and three people accompanying them were also on board, Russia’s defense ministry said.

It wasn’t immediately clear what caused the crash, which occurred around 11am. It was also not known if anyone survived.

The authorities were investigating the cause of the crash, and a special military commission was on the way to the crash site, the Defense Ministry said.

A Russian Ilyushin Il-76 military transport plane crashed on Wednesday in Russia’s Belgorod region, Reuters reports, citing the state news agency RIA who quoted the defence ministry.

A video posted on the Telegram messenger app by Baza, a channel linked to Russian security services, showed a large aircraft falling towards the ground and exploding in a vast fireball.

The Il-76 is a military transport aircraft designed to airlift troops, cargo, military equipment and weapons. It has a normal crew of five people, and can carry up to 90 passengers.

Local governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said that an unspecified “incident” had occurred in the region’s Korochansky district, northeast of Belgorod city, and that he was going to inspect the site. He said investigators and emergency workers were already on the scene.

The Kremlin said in response to a reporter’s question that it was looking into the situation.

Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine, has come under frequent attack from Ukraine in recent months, including a December missile strike which killed 25 people.

The UK defence secretary Grant Shapps has said its allies need to “step up” their Ukraine military aid.

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, and opened up a maritime passage in the Black Sea.

“But Kyiv needs more support – and not just from the UK. Our fellow allies must step up too.”

He went on to specify that members of the Ukrainian Defense Contact Group, which is made up of 54 nations including all Nato members, “must take action”.

The UK has spent over £7b on military aid to Ukraine. Earlier this month, prime minister Rishi Sunak announced a further £2.5b in aid to Ukraine.

“The message couldn’t be clearer: The UK is in this for the long haul,” Shapps added.

This is the Guardian’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine.

This morning, the UK defence secretary Grant Shapps said its allies need 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, and opened up a maritime passage in the Black Sea.

“But Kyiv needs more support – and not just from the UK. Our fellow allies must step up too.”

He went on to specify that members of the Ukrainian Defense Contact Group, which is made up of 54 nations including all Nato members, “must take action”.

The UK has spent over £7b on military aid to Ukraine. Earlier this month, prime minister Rishi Sunak announced a further £2.5b in aid to Ukraine.

“The message couldn’t be clearer: The UK is in this for the long haul,” Shapps added.

Here are some other developments:

• At least 18 people were killed and more than 130 wounded in massive Russian airstrikes on Ukraine on Tuesday, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said. The air raids mostly targeted the two largest cities: the capital, Kyiv, and Kharkiv in the east. Ukraine’s president said more than 200 sites were struck, including 139 dwellings.

• Russia’s military is carrying out probing attacks with barrages of missiles and drones in an attempt to find weaknesses in Ukraine’s defences as US funding for security assistance is tied up in Congress, Celeste Wallander, a Pentagon assistant secretary of defence, has said.

• The Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, said he had invited Sweden’s prime minister to visit and negotiate his country joining the Nato military alliance, a process that Hungary and Turkey have delayed. Turkey’s parliament, though, voted on Tuesday to accept Sweden as a Nato member.

• Lloyd Austin, the US defence secretary, has made his first appearance since being hospitalised for cancer treatment – a stay he concealed from both the White House and Congress for several days. Austin spoke via video link at the opening of a meeting on military aid for Ukraine. “The security of the entire international community is on the line in Ukraine’s fight. I am more determined than ever to work with our allies and partners to support Ukraine and to get the job done,” Austin said.

• Western allies aren’t supplying Ukraine with enough ammunition and air defence missiles, Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, has said in an interview with German media. Russian attacks on Kyiv and Kharkiv on Tuesday “clearly show the need to provide more anti air defence systems, as well as more surface-to-air missiles”. As for the ground war, “insufficient quantities of artillery munitions has been a problem from the start”, he said.

• Kuleba said he was still in talks with the German government about receiving Taurus cruise missiles, even after the lower house of the German parliament voted a week ago against delivering them. “We’ll never give up,” Kuleba said.

• 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.

• 20 Days in Mariupol, Mstyslav Chernov’s chronicle of the besieged Ukrainian city and the international journalists who remained there after Russia invaded, has been nominated for best documentary at the Oscars.

• Poland and the Baltic states were calling for import bans on Russian aluminium and liquefied natural gas (LNG) for the European Union’s 13th package of sanctions against Moscow over its Ukraine invasion, a Polish official said.

• Slovakia’s prime minister, Robert Fico, insisted life in the Ukrainian capital was “absolutely normal”, just hours after Russian missiles fell on Kyiv and a day before his first meeting with the Ukrainian prime minister.