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Ukraine and Russia have contradicted each other over whether there had been proper notification to secure the airspace around an area where a military transport plane Moscow says was carrying 65 Ukrainian POWs crashed, killing them and nine others on board.

Russian lawmaker Andrei Kartapolov told deputies in Moscow on January 25 that Ukrainian military intelligence had been given a 15-minute warning before the Ilyushin Il-76 military transport plane entered the Belgorod region in Russia, near the border with Ukraine, and that Russia had received confirmation the message was received.

Kartapolov did not provide any evidence to back up his claim and Ukrainian military intelligence spokesman Andriy Yusov reiterated in comments to RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service that it had not received either a written or verbal request to secure the airspace where the plane went down.

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There has been no direct confirmation from Kyiv on Russian claims that the plane had Ukrainian POWs on board, or that the aircraft was downed by a Ukrainian antiaircraft missile.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has called for an international investigation of the incident, and Yusov reiterated that call, as “there are many circumstances that require investigation and maximum study.”

The RIA Novosti news agency on January 25 reported that both black boxes had been recovered from the wreckage site in Russia’s Belgorod region near the border with Ukraine.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on January 25 called the downing of the Ilyushin Il-76 military transport plane a “monstrous act,” though Moscow has yet to show any evidence that it was downed by a Ukrainian missile, or that there were Ukrainian prisoners on board.

While not saying who shot down the plane, Zelenskiy said that “all clear facts must be established…our state will insist on an international investigation.”

Ukrainian officials have said that a prisoner exchange was to have taken place on January 24 and that Russia had not informed Ukraine that Ukrainian POWs would be flown on cargo planes.

Ukrainian military intelligence said it did not have “reliable and comprehensive information” on who was on board the flight but said the Russian POWs it was responsible for “were delivered in time to the conditional exchange point where they were safe.”

Dmytro Lubinets, Ukraine’s commissioner for human rights, said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that “currently, there are no signs of the fact that there were so many people on the Il-76 plane, be they citizens of Ukraine or not.”

Aviation experts told RFE/RL that it was possible a Ukrainian antiaircraft missile downed the plane, but added that it could have also been a Russian missile that was responsible.

“During the investigation, you can easily determine which system shot down the plane based on the missiles’ damaging elements,” said Roman Svitan, a Ukrainian reserve colonel and an aviation-instructor pilot.

When asked about Russian claims of dozens of POWs on board, Svitan said that from the footage released so far, he’d seen no evidence to back up the statements.

“From the footage that was there, I looked through it all, it’s not clear where there are dozens of bodies…. There’s not a single body visible at all. At one time I was a military investigator, including investigating disasters; believe me, if there were seven or eight dozen people there, the field would be strewn with corpses and remains of bodies,” Svitan added.

Russia backed up its accusation that Ukraine deliberately shot down the military transport plane by saying Russian radar registered the launch of two missiles from Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, which borders the Belgorod region.

The Ukrainian General Staff said in a statement that did not mention the crash that the Ukrainian military had noticed more Russian military transport aircraft landing in Belgorod and linked this to Russian missile strikes on Kharkiv and other Ukrainian cities.

“With this in mind, Ukraine’s armed forces will continue to take measures to destroy means of delivery and exercise airspace control to eliminate the terrorist threat, including in the Belgorod-Kharkiv direction,” it said on Telegram.

A Ukrainian military intelligence statement on Facebook said Kyiv had not been asked to ensure airspace security around the Belgorod area as had been the case during previous prisoner of war swaps.

It said Russia’s accusations that Kyiv shot down the transport plane could be “a planned action to destabilize the situation in Ukraine and weaken international support for our state.”

Russia called for an emergency UN Security Council session on January 25 to discuss the downing of the aircraft, which Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called a “criminal” act by Ukraine.

Russian officials said the plane was carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war, six crew members, and three escorts.

A list of the six crew members who were supposed to be on the flight was obtained by RFE/RL. The deaths of three of the crew members were confirmed to RFE/RL by their relatives.

Video on social media showed a plane spiraling to the ground, followed by a loud bang and explosion that sent a ball of smoke and flames skyward.