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According to defense experts and officials in the region, Russian anti-aircraft fire may have caused a plane to crash in Kazakhstan on Christmas Day.
The Azerbaijan Airlines flight was en route from Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, to Grozny in Chechnya, southern Russia, when it diverted and crashed in Kazakhstan, killing 38 people. 29 passengers survived.
Most of the passengers on the Embraer 190 aircraft are Azerbaijani nationals. The ship was carrying 16 Russians and several citizens of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
In initial official reports on Wednesday, Russia said heavy fog forced the plane to divert from its planned landing in Grozny and land in Kazakhstan, where it crashed after hitting a flock of birds.
The same day, Azerbaijan’s president said he was told the plane had been diverted due to bad weather.
But this was disputed by experts and officials in the region and in Ukraine, who cited evidence that Russian air defense forces were operating in Grozny at the time in response to Ukrainian drone strikes. They also cited images showing what appeared to be shrapnel damage to the interior and tail section of the crashed plane.
Andriy Kovalenko, an official at Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, posted on Telegram: “Russia was supposed to close airspace over Grozny, but didn’t. . . The plane was damaged by the Russians and sent to Kazakhstan instead of making an emergency landing in Grozny and saving lives.
Senior Ukrainian officials confirmed to the Financial Times that Kiev believes the plane was likely shot down by Russian air defense systems.
Osprey, an aviation safety agency, said: “Following video of the wreckage and the security environment in southwestern Russian airspace indicate that the aircraft was hit by anti-aircraft fire.”
A senior official in the Caucasus region said evidence indicated the plane was hit by air defenses in the Grozny area.
“If [Russian authorities are] is going [use] Jamming systems and anti-aircraft systems, they should have been turned off [the airspace]” the official told the FT. “The most benign explanation [for why they did not do so] disqualification.”
Cartography by Steven Barnard
