Lugansk (Ukraine): Pro-Russian gunmen shot down a Ukranian military transport plane on Saturday in the separatist east, killing all 49 people on board in the biggest single loss of life in the two-month insurgency.
The early morning downing near the airport of the rebel stronghold city of Lugansk came a day after Ukrainian forces notched their biggest success of their deadly campaign to reunify the splintered nation by reclaiming control of a strategic southeastern industrial port.
Closed-circuit camera footage of the downing showed a small flash flare in the sky when the large Il-76 plane was hit by what Ukrainian officials said was heavy-calibre machinegun fire. A massive second burst of light lit up the horizon when the plane apparently exploded upon hitting the ground while approaching the Lugansk airport.
“The terrorists cynically and treacherously fired with a large-calibre machinegun hitting an Ilyushin-76 of the Ukrainian air force which was carrying troops on rotation and was about to land at Lugansk airport,” the ministry said in a statement.
A spokesman for Ukraine’s self-proclaimed “anti-terrorist operation” said the plane was carrying nine crew members and 40 paratroopers.
“They all died,” spokesman Vladyslav Seleznyov told AFP by telephone.
The four-engine jet was also carrying military equipment. An AFP correspondent heard heavy fighting and a series of loud explosions in the hours preceding the downing in Lugansk, a city of 400,000 lying just 25 kilometres west of the Russian border.
The city has been under effective rebel control since the eastern uprising began in early April, but Ukrainian forces had managed to hold on to its airport and use it to rotate troops serving in the campaign.
But they have been forced to repel an increasingly frequent series of raids on the air hub by the gunmen, who had also briefly seized the main international airport in the neighbouring rebel-held city of Donetsk at the end of May.
The two-month insurgency is now known to have claimed at least 320 lives of civilians and fighters on both sides.
PTI adds
Russia sent heavy weapons, tanks to separatists in Ukraine: US
Earlier, the US accused Russia of sending heavy weapons, multiple rocket launchers and military hardware in support of pro-Moscow separatists in Ukraine. “We assess that separatists in eastern Ukraine have acquired heavy weapons and military equipment from Russia, including Russian tanks and multiple rocket launchers,” State Department Deputy Spokesperson Marie Harf said. The US has information that Russia accumulated tanks at a deployment site in southwest Russia, and some of these tanks had crossed from Russia into Ukraine in the past three days, Harf said.
“In the last three days, a convoy of three T-64 tanks, several BM-21 or Grad multiple rocket launchers, and other military vehicles crossed from Russia into Ukraine near the Ukrainian town of Snizhne. This is unacceptable,” she said. “Ukraine’s Interior Minister said three tanks crossed the border from Russia yesterday. Internet videos showed this same type of tank that departed southwest Russia moving through multiple cities in eastern Ukraine, including Snizhne, Torez, and Makiyivka,” she said.
“Russia will claim these tanks were taken from Ukrainian forces, but no Ukrainian tank units have been operating in that area. We are confident that these tanks came from Russia,” she said.
Harf said that Russia accumulated multiple rocket launchers at the same deployment site in southwest Russia, and they were also recently departed. “Internet video has shown what we believe to be these same rocket launchers travelling through Luhansk,” Harf said. Harf earlier said the US and its European allies have encouraged Russia to support the peace plan and assist the Ukrainian President in its implementation. Though the presidents of Russia and Ukraine have spoken, the US is highly concerned by new Russian efforts to support the separatists, she said. (Agencies)
