NOVOHANNIVKA, Ukraine (AP) — Pro-Russian separatists shot down a military transport plane Saturday in the country's restive east, killing all 49 service personnel on board, Ukrainian officials said.
It was a bitter setback for Ukrainian forces, which have struggled to suppress an armed insurgency by foes of the new government.
Nine crew and 40 troops were aboard the Il-76 when it went down early Saturday as it approached the airport at the city of Luhansk, the Ukrainian prosecutor general's office said in a statement.
The plane's tail section lay with other pieces of scorched wreckage in a farm field near the village of Novohannivka, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of Luhansk. An AP reporter saw a dozen or more armed separatists inspecting the crash site.
