The Russian Defence Ministry said on Wednesday that one of its military aircraft crashed over the occupied Crimean Peninsula, killing all 29 people on board.
In a statement, the ministry said the An-26 military transport plane was carrying 23 passengers and six crew members at the time of the incident.
"During a scheduled flight over the Crimean peninsula on March 31 at around 6:00 PM Moscow time (1500GMT), communication with the An-26 military transport aircraft was lost," it said.
Search and rescue teams later located the crash site and confirmed that there were no survivors.
A ministry commission has been dispatched to investigate the incident at the scene.
According to a source cited by RIA Novosti, the aircraft crashed into a rocky area.
The ministry added that no evidence of external impact had been found so far, with a technical malfunction considered the preliminary cause of the crash.
Russian forces occupied the Crimean Peninsula in February 2014, with Russian President Vladimir Putin formally dividing the region into two separate federal subjects of the Russian Federation the following month.
