Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called for investigations to play out, amid speculation a Russian missile hit Azerbaijan Airlines flight 8243.
The Kremlin is defending against accusations that Russian air defense forces were responsible for bringing down Azerbaijan Airlines flight 8243 on Dec. 25.
The Azerbaijan Airlines’ Embraer 190 aircraft was en route from Baku, Azerbaijan, to the Russian city of Grozny on Wednesday when an emergency led the aircraft to divert its course and make a crash landing near Aktau, Kazakhstan. In all, 38 of the 67 people aboard the aircraft were killed in the crash.
Azerbaijani, Kazakhstani, and Russian authorities are continuing to investigate what factors led to the airliner crash. Photos and videos posted online following the crash, showed pockmarks on the aircraft’s tail section, leading some to accuse Russian air defense forces in Grozny of striking the airliner with an air defense missile while fending off a Ukrainian drone attack.
In a
statement he shared with Russia’s state-owned TASS news agency on Dec. 26, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said a crash investigation should play out before people jump to conclusions about what brought the aircraft down.
“It would be wrong to build any hypotheses before the panel of inquiry presents its conclusions. Of course, we cannot do that. No one should do it,” Peskov said.
In a Dec. 25 social media
post, Ukrainian defense official Andriy Kovalenko accused Russia of failing to close its airspace over Grozny. Kovalenko further alleged that after Russian forces damaged the Azerbaijani aircraft, they ordered it to divert to Kazakhstan rather than allowing it to land in Grozny.
Kovalenko said footage captured before the crash showed shrapnel damage inside the aircraft.
Of the 62 passengers aboard flight 8243, Azerbaijan Airlines
said 37 were Azerbaijani citizens, 16 were Russian citizens, six were citizens of Kazakhstan, and three were citizens of Kyrgyzstan.
Purported
footage of the Azerbaijan Airlines flight in its final moments aloft showed an aircraft descending at a steep angle. Upon striking the ground, the aircraft could be seen skidding and rolling before being engulfed in a ball of fire.
North Atlantic Treaty Organization spokesperson Farah Dakhlallah expressed the alliance’s condolences for the families and victims of the airline crash, in a Dec. 26
statement,
“We wish those injured in the crash a speedy recovery and call for a full investigation,” Dakhlallah said.
Russian civil aviation authorities, in their initial statements following the crash, attributed the mishap to a bird strike.
In his own
statement following the crash, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said he'd received information indicating the aircraft diverted from its course to Grozny amid worsening weather conditions.
Flightradar24, a commercial flight tracking service, has
said the aircraft faced GPS jamming or spoofing as it neared Russian airspace. The service
noted multiple gaps in the aircraft’s GPS data during the flight. The service also noted rapid changes in the aircraft’s altitude as it neared Aktau.
In a Dec. 26 press statement carried by Kazakhstani state media, Khazakstani Transport Minister Marat Karabayev
said air traffic controllers in his country were notified of a possible oxygen tank explosion aboard Azerbaijan Airlines flight 8243 before the crash. Karabayev said the aircraft experienced dramatic changes in its altitude and flight course as it twice attempted to land at the Aktau airfield, before eventually crashing along the Kazakhstani coastline.
