The passenger plane of Azerbaijan Airlines which crashed near the Kazakh city of Aktau on Wednesday, was attacked by Russian air defence, Euronews reports.
According to Azerbaijani government sources, the Russians hit the plane with a surface-to-air missile.
Euronews’ interlocutors clarify that the missile was fired at the plane while it was flying over Grozny, where drone activity was recorded. It exploded near the plane, and its fragments hit passengers and crew members.
Also, according to journalists’ sources, the damaged plane was not allowed to land at Russian airports when the pilots requested an emergency landing. The plane was ordered to fly across the Caspian Sea toward Aktau.
Euronews found out that the plane’s GPS navigation system was jammed throughout the flight over the sea.
Afterward, photos were posted online showing that the plane’s skin was damaged by shrapnel.
Against this background, the head of the Center for Countering Disinformation of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine, Andrii Kovalenko, emphasized that the plane was shot down by a Russian anti-aircraft missile system.
Kovalenko stressed that this happened because the Russians did not close the airspace over Grozny during the drone attack on the city.
