While gray areas persist around the crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines plane in Kazakhstan, Volodymyr Zelensky called for a “thorough investigation” on the circumstances of the tragedy. “Every human life is precious and every loss of life deserves a thorough investigation to establish the truth,” declared, Friday December 27, the Ukrainian president, in a message posted on “obvious” of Russia. According to the airline, “preliminary results of the investigation into the Embraer 190 crash” report “from external, physical and technical interference”, she explained on Telegram.
“Given the preliminary results of the investigation into the Embraer 190 crash [et des] risks to flight safety”, it announced on Friday that it was suspending its connections with seven Russian cities, including Grozny, in the Russian republic of Chechnya. This is where his flight which left Baku on Wednesday was to land, before diverting towards Kazakhstan and crashing on landing, killing 38 people.
The Azerbaijani company is also suspending its flights to Mineralnye Vody, Sochi and Makhachkala, three other Russian cities in the Caucasus, as well as Volgograd, Ufa and Samara. However, it continues to provide services to other cities in Russia, namely Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Astrakhan, Kazan and Novosibirsk.
Russian civil aviation assured on Friday that the plane had not been able to land in Grozny due to the presence in the airspace of Ukrainian drones which “carried out terrorist attacks against civilian infrastructure in the cities of Grozny and Vladikavkaz”. Dmitri Yadrov, the head of this agency, says on Telegram that the situation was “very difficult” at Grozny airport, also immersed in a “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, he explained. The Kremlin said Friday morning that it would not comment until the investigation is complete.
Moscow did not, however, mention the possibility that a Russian anti-aircraft missile could have hit the aircraft, a hypothesis raised by experts and Western media. In photos and videos showing the remains of the plane, “we see (…) the fuselage of the plane with holes which are normally caused by anti-aircraft missiles”, Azerbaijani MP Rassim Mousabekov told AFP. “An investigation is underway to establish whether [le crash a été causé par] a strike by Russian air defense or another cause”, he declared.
The day before, Ukrainian officials also pointed out Russia. Lieutenant Andriy Kovalenko, head of the center for combating disinformation within the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, blamed the Russian air defense system in a message published on X. “Russia should have closed the airspace over Grozny, which was not done,” he accused.
