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Russian anti-aircraft fire may have caused a plane to crash on Christmas Day in Kazakhstan, defense experts and regional officials said.
An Azerbaijan Airlines flight from Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, to Grozny in Chechnya, southern Russia, diverted and landed in Kazakhstan, killing 38 people. Twenty-nine passengers survived.
Most of the Embraer 190 on board were Azerbaijani nationals. On board were 16 Russians and several citizens of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
Initial official reports on Wednesday said heavy fog in Russia forced the plane to land in Kazakhstan instead of a planned landing in Grozny, where it hit a flock of birds and crashed.
On that day, the President of Azerbaijan said that he was informed that the plane had been diverted due to bad weather.
But it was contradicted by experts and officials in the region and Ukraine, who cited evidence that Ukrainian drones were operating over Grozny at the time of Russian air defenses. They also cited pictures of what appeared to be cracks inside and on the tail of the wrecked plane.
Andriy Kovalenko, an official of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, said on Telegram: “Russia was going to close its airspace over Grozny, but it didn’t . . . Instead of making an emergency landing in Grozny and saving lives, the plane was damaged by the Russians and sent to Kazakhstan.
Senior Ukrainian officials confirmed to the Financial Times that the Kiev plane was likely hit by Russian air defense systems.
Aviation security agency Osprey said it “monitored video footage of the debris and airspace defenses in southwestern Russia, indicating that the plane may have been hit by anti-aircraft fire.”
A senior official in the Caucasus region said the plane was damaged by air defense near Grozny.
“If (Russian authorities) were (using) jamming systems and anti-aircraft systems, they should have closed[the airspace],” the official told FTA.
Cartography by Steven Bernard
