A Russian military transport aircraft has crashed in the occupied Crimean peninsula, killing all 29 people on board, according to Russian authorities.
In a statement on Tuesday, Russia’s defence ministry said the wreckage of the Soviet-era An-26 aircraft was discovered after it lost contact during what it described as a “routine flight.” The ministry attributed the incident to a “technical failure,” adding that there was no evidence of external impact on the aircraft.
“The aircraft suffered a ‘technical failure,’” the ministry said, noting there was no visible damage suggesting involvement of “missiles, drones or birds.”
The plane was carrying seven crew members and 23 passengers at the time of the crash as it flew over Crimea, a Ukrainian peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014.
Russia’s Investigative Committee confirmed the incident and announced it had launched a probe into a possible breach of flight safety regulations.
State news agency Tass reported that communication with the aircraft was lost at approximately 18:00 local time (15:00 GMT), prompting a search-and-rescue operation that later located the wreckage.
Ukraine has not officially commented on the crash.
The An-26, developed during the Soviet era by Ukrainian aerospace manufacturer Antonov, is primarily used for military transport operations, including the movement of cargo and personnel over short to medium distances. First introduced in the late 1960s, the aircraft has been involved in multiple fatal incidents over the years.
In 2020, an An-26 crash in Kharkiv killed 26 people, most of them military cadets. A year later, another crash in Russia’s Far East claimed 28 lives, while a 2022 incident in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region resulted in one fatality.
The crash comes amid ongoing hostilities between Russian and Ukrainian forces in and around Crimea, following Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine four years ago. Ukrainian forces have frequently targeted Russian military installations on the peninsula, which lies near the partially occupied Kherson region in southern Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly called for Russia to withdraw from Crimea as part of any ceasefire agreement. In November, a United States-backed peace proposal suggested that Kyiv would cede control of the peninsula as part of a negotiated settlement.
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