NEW YORK, UN. Jan 24 (Interfax) - Moscow has requested an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council after a Russian Ilyushin Il-76 military transport airplane's crash in the Belgorod region, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
"We have requested already. It was done about one hour or one and a half hours ago. [We requested] an urgent UN Security Council meeting at 3 p.m. New York time," Lavrov said at a press conference at the United Nations headquarters in New York.
The Russian side "is very much hoping that the French presidency will faithfully fulfil its obligations and schedule such a meeting as soon as possible," he said.
"Immediately after the airplane crashed following a strike by air defense artillery, the Ukrainian side spoke about another victory by the valiant Ukrainian Armed Forces," he said. "But once it became known that it had been a flight carrying prisoners for exchange, and Ukrainian defense ministry officials could not but know that such an exchange was being prepared, the Ukrainian propaganda quickly started to sweep bravura reports about its victories under the carpet, and now it is trying to think up some other explanations," Lavrov said.
The Russian Defense Ministry said earlier on Wednesday that the Il-76 airplane that had crashed in the Belgorod region was shot down by Ukrainian forces.
The Russian military transport airplane was on its way from the Chkalovsky airfield to Belgorod, carrying Ukrainian service members for a prisoner swap. All 65 Ukrainian soldiers, three Russian servicemen escorting the prisoners and six crewmembers were killed in the crash.