A military transport plane that Russia said was carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war crashed Wednesday morning in a Russian region near Ukraine.It wasn’t immediately clear what caused the crash in the Belgorod region or if anyone survived. The Associated Press could not confirm who was aboard the plane, and the Ukrainians did not immediately comment.A special military commission was on the way to the crash site, the Russian Defense Ministry said.Russian state news agency RIA Novosti, citing the ministry, reported that the POWs were being transported to the border region for a prisoner exchange.Speaking on his morning call with reporters, President Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said he could not comment on the crash as he did not have enough information about it.The Russian air force has suffered a string of crashes that some observers have attributed to a higher number of flights amid the fighting in Ukraine.Seven hundred days after the Kremlin’s forces rolled into Ukraine, the 1,500-kilometer (930-mile) front line largely static amid icy weather. As both sides seek to replenish their weapons stockpiles, the war recently has focused on long-range strikes.Earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said a major Russian missile attack on Tuesday had killed 18 people and injured 130.The barrage, employing more than 40 ballistic, cruise, anti-aircraft and guided missiles hit 130 residential buildings in three Ukrainian cities, “all ordinary houses,” Zelenskyy said on X, formerly Twitter.Russia’s onslaught, which included targets in the capital Kyiv and second-largest city Kharkiv, was the heaviest in weeks and lent weight to Zelenskyy’s appeals for Western allies to provide more military aid.”This year, the main priority is to strengthen air defense to protect our cities and towns, as well as defend frontline positions,” Zelenskyy said on X late Tuesday.
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