Did Russian air defense shoot down the Azerbaijani plane in Kazakhstan? | News of the war between Russia and Ukraine

Kyiv, Ukraine – Analysts and experts from Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan told Al Jazeera that it was very likely that Russian air defense officials struck an Azerbaijani passenger plane over Chechnya after it panicked during a Ukrainian drone attack.

Moscow may have compounded what one expert described as a “crime” by not allowing the damaged plane to land nearby and instead forcing it to fly to Kazakhstan.

The analysis conducted by these experts comes amid Installation reports Citing unnamed Azerbaijani officials and other analysts pointing the finger at Russia over the incident in which at least 38 people were killed.

The Kremlin claimed that Flight AZAL 8432 with 67 passengers on board collided with a flock of birds early Wednesday after entering Russian airspace to land in Grozny, the administrative capital of Chechnya.

But within hours, photos and videos emerged of the plane, apparently showing deep holes and multiple marks on its tail.

Experts say the damage is similar to that caused by a Pantsir-S1 strike, a Soviet-era defense system used by Chechnya to fend off Ukrainian drone attacks. At the time, Chechen air defense forces were repelling an attack by Ukrainian drones, claiming to have shot them down “all of them.”

“No bird could ever cause such damage; it is ridiculous and criminal to claim such a thing,” a Kazakh aviation safety expert told Al Jazeera.

He insisted on anonymity because Kazakh authorities detained blogger Azamat Sarsenbayev for 10 days after he took photos and videos at the crash site.

“The fact that they imprisoned the blogger shows that they were following instructions from the Kremlin,” Alisher Elkhamov, head of the Central Asia Center for Due Diligence, a London-based think tank, told Al Jazeera.

Meanwhile, the plane was subject to GPS jamming and spoofing, which is routinely used against drone attacks, according to Flightradar24, an international flight tracking service.

Russian aviation authorities did not allow the plane to land at any of the multiple nearby airports, forcing the pilots to fly over the stormy Caspian Sea to attempt to land in the city of Aktau in western Kazakhstan. The plane crashed near Aktau Airport.

“They wanted to write it off as a bird collision, but in the end the Kazakh blogger spoiled their plans,” Ilkhamov said.

Kazakhstan has been one of Russia’s closest allies in Central Asia for decades, and its president, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, called on Russian forces to help his government. Suppression of the popular uprising In 2022.

The Kremlin has so far refused to comment on the growing accusations that Russia may have been involved in shooting down the plane.

“I have nothing to add,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow on Friday. “We do not feel entitled to provide reviews, and we will not do so.” Moscow warned against speculation about the causes of the plane crash, and urged that investigators be allowed to complete their investigations first.

But if Russian air defenses had shot down the plane, the Kremlin and Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov “broke every international rule they could,” according to Ihor Romanenko, a former deputy chief of the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces who focused on air defense for the Ukrainian armed forces. . Contracts.

“They committed a crime. They got scared, they thought it might have been a provocation,” he said, attributing the negligence to Kadyrov’s “psychosis” over recent attacks by Ukrainian drones that struck and damaged military sites in Grozny.

As for the Russian decision not to allow the plane to land within its territory, Romanenko said: “They wanted to drown these tired, stressed, and wounded people.”

Meanwhile, some Russian media claimed that Ukrainian drones damaged the plane, while Kremlin-run TV channels insisted that birds and fog caused the crash.

“They are delirious. It was the shrapnel that destroyed the plane,” Andriy Pronin, a pioneer in the use of drones in the Ukrainian army who heads a school for drone pilots in Kiev, told Al Jazeera.

Baku has not officially announced the results of its investigations, but a group of Azerbaijani officials and experts insisted that Russian air defenses caused the accident.

In 2014, a Malaysian airliner crashed over separatist-controlled areas in southeastern Ukraine.

All 283 passengers and 15 crew were killed, and a Dutch-led investigation two years later concluded that a Russian Buk missile had shot down the plane. Several separatists told this reporter days after the attack that they shot down the plane thinking it was a Ukrainian military plane.

The Azerbaijani plane crash will not “sever” ties between Moscow and Baku, but has already damaged Russia’s image in the oil-rich Caspian Sea country, a Baku-based analyst said.

“It is difficult for Baku to choose to sever ties with Moscow, but the incident will undoubtedly have a negative impact on bilateral relations,” Emil Mustafayev, editor-in-chief of Mainval Politika magazine, told Al Jazeera.

“Moreover, Russia risks losing the last vestiges of its authority among the public in Azerbaijan,” he added. Even those who once supported Putin now view Russia with contempt because of its attempts to hide the truth and evade responsibility for the tragedy.

Chechen ruler Kadyrov is a former separatist strongman, and his tough policies in the mountainous, Muslim-majority North Caucasus region often ignore Russian federal laws.

The leader was one of the most vocal supporters of Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine and claimed that Chechen soldiers were leading the war.

But Al Jazeera’s analysis showed this role in the conflict It was minimal and mostly consisted of Scary Russian ethnic soldiers And monitor the areas occupied by Moscow.