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The national airlines of Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have suspended some flights to Russia after evidence suggested that an Azerbaijani plane was shot down by Russian air defense systems.
Kazakh airline Qazak Air said on Friday that it had suspended its flights from Astana to Yekaterinburg, according to Reuters. Casinform News AgencyWhile Azerbaijan Airlines suspended its flights to seven cities in southern Russia.
The measures were taken after an Azerbaijan Airlines flight from Baku to Russia's regional capital, Grozny, was diverted across the Caspian Sea and made an emergency landing near Aktau in Kazakhstan on Wednesday, killing 38 of the 67 people on board.
Video of the crashed fuselage showed multiple puncture marks consistent with anti-aircraft system fire. There is also evidence that Russia was jamming the GPS navigation system near Grozny at the time, apparently to defend against a Ukrainian drone attack.
Qazq Air said it would suspend its flights to Ekaterinburg until January 27 pending “continuous risk assessment” of flights to Russia. Azerbaijan Airlines said it had suspended its flights to Grozny and other cities in southern Russia until the investigation into the incident was completed.
IsraelOn Thursday, El Al Airlines also announced the suspension of its flights from Tel Aviv to Moscow pending a safety assessment.
Russia insisted that the plane was unable to land in Grozny due to heavy fog and that the plane collided with a flock of birds. Local authorities in the North Ossetia region near Russia announced an attack by Ukrainian drones, one of which was shot down, killing a woman on the ground. But Kommersant reported that no “dense fog” was expected over Grozny at the time.
The head of the Russian aviation agency Rosaviatsiya, Dmitry Yadrov, said on Thursday that the conditions surrounding Grozny are “very difficult” amid the Ukrainian drone attacks.
In response to a question on Friday about reports of a missile attack, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he had nothing to add.
The incident sparked comparisons with Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 that was shot down over Ukraine in 2014. That's it The accident, which claimed the lives of all 298 people on board, was the result of an air defense missile fired by Russian-controlled fighters in eastern Ukraine.
It is not clear how long Kazakhstan's investigation into the accident will take, or how freely it will reach conclusions about the cause. The investigation includes investigators from Russia And Azerbaijan, according to Kazakh officials.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said it was too early to comment on the cause of the accident.
The type of aircraft in question – an Embraer-190 regional jet – was previously seen as one of the safest civilian aircraft in the world.
A senior US official said there were early indications that a Russian anti-aircraft system may have struck the flight.
Senior Ukrainian officials He said The Financial Times also believed the plane may have been hit by an air defense missile. Andriy Kovalenko, a Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council official, posted on Telegram on Thursday that Russia should have closed the airspace over Grozny, in light of the operations it was conducting, but did not do so.
“The Russians damaged the plane and sent it to Kazakhstan, instead of making an emergency landing in Grozny and saving people’s lives,” he wrote.
Rasim Musabekov, a member of the Azerbaijani Parliament, called on Russia to apologise.
“The plane was shot down on Russian territory, in the sky of Grozny, and this cannot be denied,” Mosabekov told Turan News Agency. “This is how civilized relations work. If the air defense systems activate, the airport must be closed and warnings issued to prevent flights into the area.”
Cartography by Stephen Bernard
