It will prove to be a terrible and tragic irony if it turns out that Kyiv shot down a Russian transport aircraft today that was transporting Ukrainian prisoners of war ready to be exchanged. Around 11 a.m. local time this morning an Il-76 transport aircraft crashed in a fireball near the Russian village of Yablonova in the Belgorod Region, some 35 miles from the Russian-Ukrainian border. Everyone on board was killed. It appears that, perhaps alongside a military cargo, the plane was carrying 65 Ukrainian PoWs – if the claims of the Russian defence ministry are to be believed.

As is always the case in this war, multiple and contradictory explanations quickly emerged, often without any real evidence. Pro-Kyiv sources on social media claimed the plane had been shot down by the Russians’ own air defences. There had been a number of air alerts already in Belgorod and their assumption was that hasty and careless Russian gunners leapt to lethal conclusions. This would mean that the IFF transponder equipment which should identify a friendly aircraft was not working or ignored, which has happened before. More to the point, the Il-76’s flight path from Moscow was hardly consistent with a Ukrainian attack.

Multiple and contradictory explanations quickly emerged, often without any real evidence

As a variant of the above, there are claims that this is a ‘false flag’ attack intended to kill the PoWs and provide an excuse for Russia not to make further swaps. Similar allegations of false flag attacks appear with obsessive frequency online and rarely have anything to back them up. The suggestion that Moscow would sacrifice a 3.7 billion ruble (£32 million) aircraft when it could just as easily invent an excuse for any military escalations or deal suspension appears pretty implausible.

The Russians, on the other hand, are claiming that this was a Ukrainian attack. The retired general and now hawkish parliamentarian Andrei Kartapolov asserted that it had been shot down by three missiles fired by the Ukrainians, either US-made Patriots or German IRIS-Ts. He provided no evidence to support his claims, but added that a follow-on flight with another 80 PoWs then turned back.

Since then, anonymous sources in the Ukrainian press have surfaced claiming that they were indeed behind the plane’s interception, and that the aircraft was actually carrying S-300 missiles to resupply the Russian military. It has been confirmed that a prisoner exchange was on the cards for today. Normally both sides would notify the other of relevant flights, precisely to avoid this kind of incident, but it is not yet clear whether this was done in this case.

As of writing, it is frustratingly impossible to come to any clear conclusion. As an Il-76 can easily carry 90 passengers or 40 tonnes of cargo, it is theoretically possible that it was carrying some ordnance as well as the POWs. This, though, is stretching probability somewhat. That particular plane, tail number RA-78830, has largely been plying routes to and from Syria and Iran, which would make the munitions explanation more credible. Yet Ukrainian sources have given some preliminary – and cautious – backing to the story that PoWs were indeed on board.

The only comfort is that while the dynamics of the modern age ensure that any such incident is instantly in the eye of a storm of claim, counterclaim, rumour and rebuttal, nothing stays secret for long. In due course, we’ll know the truth. We just have to wait.