A Russian Il-76 military transport plane crashed in the central Russian oblast of Ivanovo on March 12, reportedly killing all 15 on board, the Russian state-run media outlet TASS said, citing the country's defense ministry and other sources.
Ivanovo is located around 350 kilometers (155 miles) east of Moscow and close to 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) from the Ukrainian border.
The confirmation came after Telegram channels shared videos of a plane on fire in the sky. The 112 Telegram channel claimed that all eight crew members and seven passengers died in the crash.
The Russian Telegram channel Baza alleged that the plane's engine had caught fire shortly after take-off.
There is currently no information about whether there was any potential outside interference associated with the plane crash. The claims about possible fatalities have not yet been confirmed, but Russia's Defense Ministry did corroborate the number of crew and passengers on board.
The Il-76 crash came on the same day as alleged Ukrainian drone attacks in Russia, and a cross-border incursion from Ukraine by Russian anti-Kremlin militia.
Andrii Yusov, a spokesperson for Ukraine's military intelligence, said on national television that the incidents were the "direct consequence of Russia's military aggression."
Yusov did not claim responsibility, but said that Russia must remove its troops from Ukraine if it wishes to prevent similar episodes in the future.
The Russian domestic airline industry has seen a significant uptick in accidents and emergency landings since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of war and subsequent imposition of Western sanctions.
The sanctions have prohibited the export of aviation-related technology and spare parts and banned the ability of Russian airlines or Russian-owned airplanes to use EU airspace.
The measures have radically transformed the nature of Russian airlines, forcing the majority of routes to be domestic-only.
The Russian state-controlled media outlet Kommersant reported in May 2023 that 2,000 flights had been recorded by planes using expired parts, according to comments by Viktor Basargin, the head of the Russian Federal Service for Supervision of Transport (Rostransnadzor).
Russia's Foreign Ministry officially filed a complaint with the U.N.'s International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) in October 2023, saying that the sanctions "jeopardized the safety of international civil aviation."
Nate Ostiller
