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Russian military plane crashes in Crimea, killing 29 people on board

MOSCOW (AP) — A Russian military plane crashed in annexed Crimea, killing 29 people on board, officials said Wednesday.

The An-26 military transport plane went missing Tuesday while flying over the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

Early Wednesday, the Russian Defense Ministry said the plane crashed, killing six crewmembers and 23 passengers. Russia’s Investigative Committee said the plane had a crew of seven and carried 22 passengers. There was no immediate official explanation for the difference between the statements.

The Defense Ministry said in a report carried by Russian news agencies that according to the preliminary information the crash was caused by a technical malfunction.

The Soviet-designed military transport turboprop aircraft crashed into a cliff, according to state news agencies Tass and RIA Novosti.

Accidents involving Russian military planes have been frequent since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine.

In December, an An-22 military transport plane crashed in Russia’s Ivanovo region, killing seven crew. In October, a MiG-31 fighter jet crashed in the Lipetsk region, while a Tu-22M3 bomber crashed in the Siberian region of Irkutsk in April 2025.

In October 2022, a Su-34 bomber crashed into a residential area of Yeysk, a Russian city on the Azov sea, sparking a massive fire and killing 15 people.

Beijing bans 4 New Zealand lawmakers from entering China because they visited Taiwan

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Beijing banned four New Zealand lawmakers from traveling to China for a year and demanded they apologize because they visited Taiwan on a parliamentary trip, according to a message from the Chinese embassy conveyed via parliamentary officials and shown to The Associated Press on Thursday. China has hit lawmakers from other countries with sanctions related to contact with Taiwan before, but it's the first time for New Zealand parliamentarians, the government in Wellington said. Beijing has been increasing pressure in recent years on the democratically governed island that it claims as its own territory. Two lawmakers reached by the AP on Thursday rejected the demand for an apology, while the other two could not be immediately reached. New Zealand's government said it would express concern about the travel bans to Beijing. The elected officials visited Taipei in May, as New Zealand parliamentarians have done “for decades,” a spokesperson for Foreign Minister Winston Peters said in a statement.
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