who died in the shootdown,
Kryvyi Rih The aircraft was carrying military equipment and 40 troops, as well as a crew of nine. It was coming in to land at
Luhansk International Airport when it came under anti-aircraft fire. According to the Ukrainian Prosecutor's Office, the aircraft was brought down by
man-portable air-defense system equipment. It subsequently crashed at 00:51
local time (21:51 on 13 June,
UTC) near the village of
Krasne; all 49 people on board died. The Ukrainian Ministry of Defence blamed the pro-Russian separatists for the loss of the aircraft and troops. A military analyst based in Kyiv reported that two empty launch tubes for
Igla surface-to-air missiles (
SAM) had been found near the Luhansk airport. Vladimir Inogorodsky, spokesman of the Donetsk People's Republic, confirmed that Igla missiles had been used. The separatists had said a week prior to the downing of the plane that they would not allow any more flights into the airport. The incident was the worst loss suffered by the Ukrainian military in a single event since the
pro-Russian conflict began in February 2014. On 7 October 2017, the
Security Service of Ukraine claimed it had established the involvement of the
Russian
private military company Wagner Group in the downing of the Il-76. On 14 June 2019, on the fifth anniversary of the shootdown of the aircraft, the
Security Service of Ukraine reported that its investigators established direct involvement of
Russian Federation Armed Forces lieutenant general Yevgeny Nikiforov, who ordered
Dmitry Utkin from "Wagner Group" to destroy the aircraft. ==Aircraft==