Russia said Friday that Ukrainian drones attacked Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, on the day of the crash of the Azerbaijan Airlines plane, which killed 38 people, with Western experts favoring the trail of a Russian anti-aircraft missile for explain the drama.
The aircraft, an Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer 190 with 67 people on board, was flying on Wednesday between Baku, capital of Azerbaijan, and Grozny, capital of the Russian Caucasian republic of Chechnya.
It crashed and caught fire in still unclear circumstances near Aktau, a port on the Caspian Sea located in western Kazakhstan and far from its destination, killing 38 people, according to the authorities of this country. Central Asia.
While experts and Western media point to the hypothesis of a crash due to a Russian anti-aircraft missile fire, the Kremlin on Friday refused any comment “before the conclusions of the investigation”. The Russian aviation agency, Rosaviatsia, explained that the situation at Grozny airport that day was “very difficult”.
“At that time, Ukrainian military drones were carrying out terrorist attacks against civilian infrastructure in the cities of Grozny and Vladikavkaz,” Rosaviatsia boss Dmitry Yadrov said on Telegram.
He also reported “thick fog” which prevented all visibility “at an altitude of 500 meters”. “The captain made two attempts to land in Grozny, which failed. Other airports were offered to him. He decided to go to Aktau airport” in Kazakhstan, Mr. Yadrov added.
– Holes in the fuselage –
Grozny has been attacked by Ukrainian drones several times since Russia’s assault on Ukraine began in 2022.
Mr. Yadrov assured that Russia intended to “fully cooperate in the investigation into this tragedy” with Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, two former Soviet republics on good terms with Moscow.
“We believe that we do not have the right to make comments before the conclusions of the investigation,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov told the press.
In this context, Azerbaijan Airlines announced on Friday that it would suspend its flights to seven Russian cities, particularly in the Caucasus, explaining its decision by the “preliminary results of the investigation into the Embraer 190 crash and the risks to flight safety.” .
“An investigation is underway to establish whether it was a Russian air defense strike or another cause,” Azerbaijani MP Rassim Mousabekov told AFP, while stressing that “we see in the photos and images “Videos the plane’s fuselage with holes that are normally caused by air defense missiles.”
Contacted by AFP, the Azerbaijani government did not respond to questions about the possible causes of the crash.
The head of the Ukrainian presidential administration, Andriï Iermak, for his part directly accused Moscow, ensuring that Russia must be “held responsible for having shot down the Azerbaijan Airlines plane”.
– “Explosion” –
None of the countries involved have yet publicly confirmed the missile hypothesis, fueled in numerous media by images of impacts on the wreckage of the aircraft, and according to which the aircraft was fired upon during his approach to the destination airport in Russia, before managing to fly to Kazakhstan where he crashed.
Azerbaijan Airlines initially claimed that the plane had hit a flock of birds, before withdrawing this information.
This version was also mentioned on Wednesday by Rosaviatsia. The Kazakh Ministry of Transport spoke on Thursday of a “balloon explosion” on board.
“There was an explosion. It’s sure. Everyone heard it,” one of the Russian survivors, of Tajik origin, Soubkhonkoul Rakhimov, told Russian television channel RT. “I wouldn’t say it was inside the plane,” he added, however, adding that his life jacket had been “pierced by a shrapnel.”
On board the plane were 37 Azerbaijanis, six Kazakhs, three Kyrgyz and 16 Russians, as well as five crew members, according to the Kazakh Transport Ministry. Twenty-nine of them survived.
“I never thought my father could survive after such an explosion,” Konoul Assadova, daughter of Azerbaijan Airlines steward Zulfougar Assadov, one of the survivors, told AFP.
“His back hurts, he can’t speak much, but he has no fractures,” said this woman, after being able to see her father “for five minutes” in the hospital where he is after was repatriated Thursday to Baku, with 13 other injured Azerbaijanis.
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