KIEV: At least 22 people, including military cadets, were killed and two others injured on Friday when a Ukrainian air force plane crashed near Kharkiv in the east of the country.

“Twenty-two people died,” Deputy Interior Minister Anton Gerashchenko said, adding that “the search for two other people is continuing”.

The transport plane was carrying a total of 28 passengers when it crashed, including 21 military students and seven crew, he said.

“It’s a shock,” he added. “At the moment it’s impossible to establish the cause” of the crash.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he would travel to the region on Saturday.

“We are urgently creating a commission to investigate all the circumstances and causes of the tragedy,” he wrote on Facebook.

The Antonov-26 transport aircraft crashed at 1750 GMT, two kilometres from a military air base in Chuhuiv, 30 kilometres southeast of Kharkiv and 100 kilometres west of the front line with pro-Russia separatists.

Published in Dawn, September 26th, 2020