Russia seeks to play down speculation over Azerbaijan Airlines crash
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Kazakhstan also stresses that the cause remains unknown after claims Russian air defence fire led to fatal crash. Russia and Kazakhstan have sought to temper speculation about the cause of the Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash, with the Kremlin urging people to wait for the results of the investigation.
A Ukrainian national security official has claimed that the crash, which killed 38 people on Christmas Day, was caused by Russian air defence fire. The plane, which was flying from the Azerbaijani capital, Baku, to the Russian city of Grozny in Chechnya, came down in a field near Aktau in Kazakhstan after veering hundreds of miles off its planned route. Twenty-nine people survived.
Video of the crash appeared to show the plane plummeting out of the sky and bursting into flames as it hit the ground and thick, black plumes of smoke rising. On Thursday, the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said the investigation into the cause of the crash was underway, adding that it would be wrong to speculate before the inquiry concluded.
The chair of Kazakhstan’s senate also stressed on Thursday that the cause remained unknown. “None of these countries – neither Azerbaijan, Russia nor Kazakhstan – is interested in hiding information. All information will be made available to the public,” said Ashimbayev Maulen.
Their comments came after Andriy Kovalenko, the head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council’s Center for Countering Disinformation, posted on X on Wednesday: “This morning, an Embraer 190 aircraft of an Azerbaijani airline, flying from Baku to Grozny, was shot down by a Russian air defence system.’ He citied video footage from inside the plane that showed “punctured life vests”.
