Russia shoots down Azerbaijan passenger plane

Russian anti-aircraft fire could have caused a plane to crash in Kazakhstan on Christmas Day, according to US and regional officials.

The Azerbaijan Airlines flight was en route from Azerbaijan’s capital Baku to Grozny in Chechnya, southern Russia, when it diverted and crash-landed in Kazakhstan, killing 38 people. Twenty-nine passengers survived.

Most of those on the plane, an Embraer 190, were Azerbaijani citizens. There were also 16 Russians onboard and several citizens of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

In preliminary official reports on Wednesday, Russia said that heavy fog had forced the plane to divert from its planned landing in Grozny and seek to land in Kazakhstan, where it crashed after probably hitting a flock of birds. On the same day, Azerbaijan’s president said he had been told the plane had been diverted due to poor weather conditions.

But that was questioned by experts and officials in the US, the region and Ukraine, who cited evidence that Russian air defences were operating over Grozny at the time in response to a Ukrainian drone strike. They also cited images of what appeared to be shrapnel damage on the inside and tail of the wrecked plane.

A US official said there were early indications that a Russian anti-aircraft system might have struck the plane. If this was the case, the incident would further underscore Moscow’s recklessness since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the official added.