There has been a conspiracy theory attached to the crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines aircraft that occurred near the city of Aktau, Kazakhstan on December 25, killing 38 people.
According to a report by Reuters, some sources “with knowledge of the preliminary findings of Azerbaijan’s investigation into the disaster” claimed that the Russian air defences downed the aircraft.
Flight J2-8243, Reuters said, crashed in a ball of fire near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan after diverting from an area of southern Russia where Moscow has repeatedly used air defence systems against Ukrainian drone strikes.
It crashed on the opposite shore of the Caspian Sea after what Russia’s aviation watchdog said was an emergency that may have been caused by a bird strike.
Officials did not explain why it had crossed the sea.
One of the Azerbaijani sources familiar with Azerbaijan’s investigation into the crash told Reuters that preliminary results showed the plane was struck by a Russian Pantsir-S air defence system.
“No one claims that it was done on purpose. However, taking into account the established facts, Baku expects the Russian side to confess to the shooting down of the Azerbaijani aircraft,” the source said.
Three other sources confirmed that the Azeri investigation had come to the same preliminary conclusion.
A United States official told Reuters on Thursday (yesterday) that there were early indications a Russian anti-aircraft system may have struck the plane.
Canada said it was deeply concerned by reports that Russian air defence may have struck the aircraft.
“We call on Russia to allow for an open and transparent investigation into the incident and to accept its findings,” the Canadian foreign ministry said in a statement on X.
Kazakh deputy prime minister, Qanat Bozymbaev, said he could neither confirm nor deny the thesis that Russian air defences downed the plane.
The Kremlin, asked before the Reuters report about the idea that the aircraft had been shot at by Russian air defences, said it would be improper to comment until the inquiry was concluded.
“It is wrong to build hypotheses before the conclusions of the investigation,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
For its part, the Russian government has cautioned against promoting “hypotheses” about the cause of the crash of a Russia-bound passenger aircraft
The BBC also quoted Peskov as saying: “It would be wrong to put forward any hypotheses before the investigation’s conclusions. We, of course, will not do this, and no-one should do this. We need to wait until the investigation is completed.”
The chief prosecutor in Kazakhstan said the investigation had not yet come to any conclusions while some commentators in Azerbaijani media said Azerbaijan expects Russia to admit shooting down the plane.
Meanwhile, the Kazakh authorities have recovered the flight data recorder and an investigation is under way.
