A military transport plane carrying air force cadets crashed and burst into flames near a highway in north-eastern Ukraine on Friday evening, killing at least 22 people on board.
The Antonov An-26 airplane crashed while trying to land during a training exercise, Ruslan Khomchak, the General Staff of the Armed Forces, said in a statement.
Khomchak explained that at least two more persons were critically injured.
A video posted by Anton Gerashchenko, the Deputy Interior Minister, on Facebook showed the aircraft in flames lying near a road and smoke billowing upwards in the night sky.
An investigation has already started on what caused the airplane to crash.
The crash happened around two kilometres (1.2 miles) from a military airport.
The cadets were from the Kharkiv University of Air Force, which is run by the country’s Defence Ministry.
Reacting, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s office said: “A state commission is being created to identify all the circumstances and causes of this disaster.
Search and rescue work continues on the spot.”
