LIVE – War in Ukraine: Moscow accuses Kyiv of shooting down plane carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners

Russian parliamentarians voted in first reading on Wednesday to freeze the money and assets of anyone found guilty of spreading “false information” about the military.

Indeed, the bill does not provide for the confiscation of all of a criminal's assets, but only for the confiscation of their money and funds that are “used or intended” to finance “criminal” activities, although those are very vague.

The speaker of the Russian Duma, the lower house of parliament, accused Kyiv on Wednesday of shooting down the plane that crashed in the Belgorod region this morning with 65 Ukrainian prisoners on board.

“They killed their own soldiers in the air, their mothers, their children waiting for them,” he announced to the room. “They shot down our pilots who carried out a humanitarian mission (…) with American and German missiles,” condemned Vyacheslav Volodin to the Russian delegation.

Russian delegates on Wednesday voted for a resolution on the alleged presence of French “mercenaries” fighting for Q in Ukraine, an allegation denied by Paris as the Kremlin's latest disinformation campaign.

“It is regrettable that French officials, once with our country one of the politico-military embargoes in Europe, perpetuate the agony of the Nazi regime in Kiev by their actions,” the resolution, addressed to French nationals, points out. Published on the website of the Assembly and the Duma, the lower house of the Russian Parliament.

A Russian Il-76 military transport plane carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war crashed in the Belgorod region on the Ukrainian border on Wednesday, the Russian Defense Ministry said, Russian agencies reported.

At 11:00 Moscow time (08:00 GMT), an Il-76 plane crashed in the Belgorod region (…) carrying 65 captured soldiers of the Ukrainian army. exchange, six staff and three assistants,” the ministry said.

At least nine people were wounded by Russian attacks overnight Tuesday into Wednesday in Kharkiv, northeastern Ukraine, the regional governor announced, a day after bombings in the country killed 18 people.

“Nine people were injured in the attack, including a child, a 4-year-old girl, who was treated at the scene,” Oleg Synegoubov, the Ukrainian head of the named region, lamented in a telegram, adding, “Four people were hospitalized: two men and two women.

The same source said that not only houses but also telecommunication installations were damaged during the attack.

The “Guardian” recently published satellite images taken by British intelligence. We see three Russian ships collecting containers from a North Korean port.

For weeks, the West has accused Pyongyang of supplying Moscow with weapons to support its invasion of Ukraine.

The West has welcomed Sweden's new move towards NATO after a favorable vote in the Turkish parliament. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has invited his Swedish counterpart to Budapest to try to remove the final hurdles to the Nordic country's entry into NATO.

The green light, given by an overwhelming majority by the Turkish parliament on Tuesday, ended 20 months of negotiations that tested the patience of Ankara's Western allies, eager to forge a united front against Moscow in the wake of the Ukraine invasion.

The Ukrainian president vowed a strong response yesterday after announcing that overnight Russian airstrikes on Kiev and Kharkiv had killed at least 18 civilians and wounded 130 others. “More than 200 different sites, including 139 residential buildings, were hit (…) 130 people were injured, all are receiving the necessary assistance. Unfortunately, 18 people died,” Volodymyr Zelensky said in a telegram, indicating that the number could rise.

Welcome to this live broadcast dedicated to the war in Ukraine. Find the latest information and powerful images related to this conflict here.