The rescue teams found this Thursday the black boxes of the Russian military plane Il-76 which crashed the day before in the Russian region of Belgorod with 74 people on board, including 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war who were going to be exchanged for Russian soldiers, according to emergency services.

“According to preliminary data, The state of both black boxes will allow their decryption. “They will be transported on a special flight to a Ministry of Defense laboratory (in Moscow), where their contents will be analyzed,” an emergency spokesman told the TASS agency.

Another source, cited by the RIA Nóvosti agency, specified that the black boxes were in the airplane tail.

The aircraft crashed this Wednesday in the Russian region of Belgorod, bordering Ukrainewhen he was carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war to be exchanged for Russian soldiers, according to the version of Moscow, which accused Kiev forces of shooting down the plane with an anti-aircraft missile.

In addition to the Ukrainian soldiers, on board the crashed plane were six members of his crew and three escorts.

Russia maintains the plane was shot down by a Ukrainian missile

The Kremlin assured on Thursday that, after the “monstrous act” committed by kyivthe future of prisoner exchanges remains “in question.”

On the other hand, the head of the Defense committee of the Duma (Russian chamber of deputies), Andrei Kartapolovwas convinced that, despite the incident, the exchanges would continue, because Russia “cannot abandon” its soldiers.

“We will talk (with the Ukrainian side) based on reality, the events that happen and aware of the type of people we deal with“, he claimed.

The last major exchange between Russia and Ukraine took place on January 3, when kyiv handed over 248 Russian soldiers to Moscow in exchange for 230 Ukrainian soldiers.

According to Kartapolov, 192 people had to participate in yesterday’s exchangebut those plans were aborted after the downing of the Russian plane.