A Russian Defence Ministry Tupolev Tu-154 carrying members of the Alexandrov Ensemble crashes into the Black Sea shortly after takeoff, killing all 92 people on board.

The Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation is the governing body of the Russian Armed Forces. The president of Russia is the commander-in-chief of the forces and directs the activity of the ministry. The minister of defence exercises day-to-day administrative and operational authority over the forces. The General Staff of the Armed Forces executes the instructions and orders of the president and the defence minister.

The Tupolev Tu-154 is a three-engined, medium-range, narrow-body airliner designed in the mid-1960s and manufactured by Tupolev. A workhorse of Soviet and (subsequently) Russian airlines for several decades, it carried half of all passengers flown by Aeroflot and its subsidiaries, remaining the standard domestic-route airliner of Russia and former Soviet states until the mid-2000s. It was exported to 17 non-Russian airlines and used as a head-of-state transport by the air forces of several countries.

The Alexandrov Ensemble, commonly known as the Red Army Choir in the West, is an official army choir of the Russian armed forces. Founded during the Soviet era, the ensemble consists of a male choir, an orchestra, and a dance ensemble.