A Ukrainian military plane has been shot down over Luhansk.
49 soldiers must have been aboard - none survived.
The plane was about to land at an airport near Luhansk in eastern Ukraine when it was shelled.
It should move about a four-engined military transport aircraft of type Ilyushin-76 - with both Ukrainian troops and military equipment on board.
The military says Reuters that 49 people who were on board died, reports news agency TT.
"Mind cynical and deceptive"
According to Ukraine's defense ministry is pro-Russian separatists behind the attack.
"The terrorists shot cynical and treacherous with a heavy caliber machine gun, and met an Ilyushin-76 aircraft with soldiers during a transfer, which would land at the airport in Luhansk," says the ministry in a statement according to the Associated Press.
Luhansk is located near the Russian border and the capital of one of the two regions in the east where pro-Russian activists declared their independence from Kiev, writes the news agency.
A Ukrainian military aircraft with 49 passengers gunned down Friday night, reports CNN.
All on board died in the attack, according to the military, according to Reuters.
"The terrorists shot cynical and treacherous with a heavy caliber machine gun," said the Ukrainian foreign ministry in a statement.
The incident is already considered one of the bloodiest during the unrest in Ukraine after months of popular protests and Russian aggression.
A military aircraft of type Ilyushin-76 was shot down Friday night during a landing at an airport in the Ukrainian city of Luhansk. According to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense were Ukrainian troops and military equipment on board the plane, reports the BBC.
"Shot with a heavy caliber machine gun"
Ukraine's defense ministry blames separatists, reports AFP. In the statement, it said that "The terrorists cynically and treacherously shot with a large caliber machine gun, and met an Ilyushin-76 aircraft with soldiers during a transfer, which would land at the airport in Luhansk."
49 people died in the attack, according to the military, according to Reuters. The death toll is not confirmed by the Ukrainian defense ministry issued a statement saying that "the service personnel on board" were killed in the attack. Ministry expressed condolences to the families of the "war dead". But they do not state how many people have died.
Hours after successful surgery
Luhansk, which is close to the Russian border, is the capital of one of the two regions in the east where pro-Russian activists declared their independence from Kiev.
The shooting down occurred just hours after the government of Ukraine carried out a successful operation against pro-Russian separatists in the city of Mariupol.
The operation seized over 30 separatists, according to Ukraine's Interior Minister Arsen Avakov.
The past two weeks there has been fierce fighting between separatists and government forces who are trying to regain control of the cities of the East. Ukraine accuses Russia of supporting the separatists, which Russia denies.
Tanks were crossing the border
The Ukrainian government has blamed Russia for allowing tanks and other heavy military equipment crossing the border into Ukraine and on Friday evening agreed with the United States in the allegations.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Marie Harf said in a statement that three tanks of type T-62 and several rocket launchers of the type BM-21 (Grad) have crossed the border from Russia over the past three days.
40 paratroopers, nine crew members and military equipment were on board. Military spokesman Vladislav Seleznov says that "preliminary information" suggesting that everyone should have died, according to the BBC.
- Details about how many people were on board still controlled, he said according to Sky News.
The death rate is believed to be the highest for the Ukrainian army at a single time, since Kiev government began to put down the uprising in the eastern part of the country.
According to the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's office handled the plane down with an anti-aircraft missile at 00:10 Swedish time.
