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Russian anti-aircraft fire may have caused a plane to crash in Kazakhstan on Christmas Day, according to defense experts and officials in the region.
The Azerbaijan Airlines flight made an emergency landing in Kazakhstan on its way from Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, to Grozny, Chechnya in southern Russia, killing 38 people. Twenty-nine passengers survived.
Most of the people on board the Embraer 190 aircraft were Azerbaijani citizens. Also on board were 16 Russians and several Kazakh and Kyrgyz citizens.
Russia said in a preliminary official report on Wednesday that heavy fog forced the plane to change its plans to land in Grozny and instead sought to land in Kazakhstan, where it crashed after hitting a flock of birds.
On the same day, Azerbaijan’s president said he was told the plane was diverted due to bad weather conditions.
But that claim was disputed by experts and officials in the region and Ukraine, who cited evidence showing Russian air defense systems were operating over Grozny in response to Ukrainian drone strikes. They also cited images of what appeared to be shrapnel damage inside and on the tail of the crashed plane.
Andrei Kovalenko, an official of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, posted on Telegram: “Russia should have closed the skies over Grozny, but did not do so…”. . The plane was damaged by the Russians and sent to Kazakhstan instead of making an emergency landing in Grozny and saving people’s lives.
Senior Ukrainian officials confirmed to the Financial Times that Kiev believed the plane was likely hit by a Russian air defense system.
Aviation safety agency Osprey said: “Follow-up video of the wreckage and the security environment in the airspace in southwestern Russia indicate that it is possible that the aircraft was hit by some form of anti-aircraft fire.”
A senior Caucasus official said there was evidence the plane was damaged by an air defense system over the Grozny region.
“if [Russian authorities are] go [use] Jamming systems and air defense systems, they should be turned off [the airspace],” the official told the Financial Times. “The kindest explanation [for why they did not do so] Just incompetent.
Cartography by Steven Bernard
