Did Russia shoot down an Azerbaijani passenger plane over Chechnya?
A recent plane crash has shocked the world. The German news outlet FAZ reported that 38 people died and 29 survived the accident, which took place in Kazakhstan on December 25th.
An Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer 190 with 67 people on board took off from the Azerbaijani capital Baku in the morning and was en route to Grozny in the Russian republic of Chechnya. However, the plane never made it to its final destination.
The plane then crashed over Kazakhstan. The Central Asian republic formed a commission to investigate the accident. It is suspected that the plane was shot down by Russia by mistake.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, according to the Russian News Agency (TASS), "It would be wrong to build any hypotheses before the panel of inquiry presents its conclusions. Of course, we cannot do that. No one should do it"
The aircraft may have entered zones over the North Caucasus where Ukrainian drones were being fought, speculated Focus. According to FAZ, Flightradar24 analyzed that the damaged aircraft could only be controlled to a limited extent for the last 74 minutes of its flight over the Caspian Sea.
According to the Azerbaijani news portal caliber.az, the pilots requested an emergency landing at the Russian airports of Mineralnye Vody or Makhachkala. However, this request was denied, forcing the crew to fly over the Caspian Sea to Aktau in Kazakhstan.
The government of Azerbaijan believes that Russia made a mistake. "Currently an investigation is in progress. Any air incident should be investigated by specialized aviation authorities," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, according to TASS.
"It is necessary to wait for the end of this probe," Peskov added. The investigation would be much more difficult if the plane had crashed over wtaer. However, the outcome of the investigation is not yet known.
Azerbaijan Airlines initially attributed the damage to the aircraft to a collision with a flock of birds. However, aviation expert Heinrich Großbongardt believes that such a scenario is unlikely, telling the German news outlet Tagesschau that an external impact was more likely.
"The plane was extremely badly damaged and uncontrollable. This is not something that would be caused by a flock of birds, for example, where the engines fail but the plane remains controllable," Großbongardt said according to a Google translation of his comments to Tagesschau.
Azerbaijani government sources are said to have confirmed that Russia shot at the airliner. However, it is still difficult to know exactly what happened to the plane, but it is possible that the aircraft could have been downed by Russian air defenses.
The Israeli airline El Al has suspended all flights between Tel Aviv and Moscow for a week. The airline announced that the reason for its decision was "developments in Russian airspace." Other airlines could follow suit if the theory that Russian air defenses shot down the Embraer 190 is confirmed.
The Kremlin has left a mess in the region. Azerbaijan's foreign policy is primarily aimed at asserting the country's independence from Russia. While Putin is trying to expand his influence in the South Caucasus, Kazakhstan is taking a neutral position, including in the war in Ukraine.
According to Wikipedia, Russia had already lost control of Azerbaijan before the collapse of the Soviet Union. The violent suppression of protests in Tbilisi on April 9, 1989, and in Baku on January 20, 1990, exacerbated the problems. If the theory that the Russians shot down the plane is confirmed, this could provide new fuel for the fire.