A Russian Antonov-26 military plane crashed while flying over the Crimean peninsula, killing 29 people, the TASS news agency reported Wednesday.“On 31 March at around 18:00 Moscow time, contact was lost with the An-26 military transport aircraft whilst it was on a scheduled flight over the Crimean Peninsula,” the defence ministry said.“The search and rescue team has located the crash site of the An-26 aircraft.

According to reports from the scene, the six crew members and 23 passengers on board were killed,” the ministry said.No signs of external impact were found on the aircraft’s wreckage, according to the same source, which indicated at this stage that technical failure likely caused the crash.Earlier, Russia on Monday expelled a British diplomat whom ?it accused of economic espionage and warned citizens not to have any contact with other embassy staff, a step the UK said amounted to intimidation.

The Federal Security Service (FSB), main successor to the Soviet-era KGB, said it had discovered that second secretary Albertus Gerhardus Janse van Rensburg was “carrying out intelligence ?and subversive activities that threaten the security of the Russian Federation”. A spokesperson for Britain’s foreign ministry called ?the accusations “completely unacceptable”, accusing Moscow of harassing its diplomats by “pumping out malicious and completely ?baseless accusations”. 

As it wages war in Ukraine, Moscow has accused Britain of pursuing espionage aimed at sowing discord within Russia ?at a level unseen since the depths of the Cold War. Britain, which supports Ukraine with money and weapons, sees Russia as ?its biggest immediate threat and accuses Russian intelligence of mounting major cyberattacks, killings and sabotage campaigns across the Western world.

Credit: Independent News Pakistan (INP)