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NATO has called for an investigation into the crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines plane that killed 38 people Wednesday morning amid growing suspicions that Russian air defenses were responsible for the disaster.
The Embraer E190 airliner was en route from the Azerbaijani capital Baku to Grozny in Russia’s Chechen republic, ruled by Ramzan Kadyrov, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Passengers reported hearing a blast, after which the plane was diverted hundreds of kilometers from its route and crashed near the Kazakh city of Aktau. There were 29 survivors.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with the families and victims of Azerbaijan Airlines flight J28243,” NATO spokesperson Farah Dakhlallah said in a post on X Thursday. “We wish those injured in the crash a speedy recovery and call for a full investigation.”
The Kremlin has cautioned against drawing any premature conclusions, with spokesperson Dmitry Peskov saying Thursday: “We need to wait for the investigation to conclude.”
The official explanation from Russia’s aviation watchdog was that the plane was redirected to Aktau after it struck a flock of birds.
That version has drawn skepticism, however, as images of the shattered fuselage appear to show it was pierced by shrapnel.
Several media reports, including by Russian independent news outlet Meduza, Reuters and Azerbaijan’s Caliber, claim the passenger jet was damaged by a Russian air defense missile in an area where Moscow has been targeting Ukrainian drones in recent weeks.
Caliber, citing Azerbaijani officials, said the aircraft was refused permission to land at three nearby Russian airports despite filing an emergency request, and was instead ordered to fly across the Caspian Sea.
The theory that Russia shot the plane down after mistaking it for a Ukrainian drone has been bolstered by reports of a simultaneous drone attack on Grozny. Chechnya’s Security Council Secretary Khamzat Kadyrov, a nephew of Ramzan, claimed in an Instagram post — which was later deleted — that a drone attack on Grozny had been successfully neutralized.
Andrii Kovalenko, head of an anti-disinformation unit at Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, said in a post on Telegram that Russia had been supposed to close the airspace over Grozny, but failed to do so.
“The plane was damaged by the Russians and was sent to Kazakhstan, instead of making an emergency landing in Grozny and saving people’s lives. In one word — Russia,” Kovalenko wrote.
If it is confirmed that the plane was mistakenly downed by Russia, the incident will echo the Malaysia Airlines disaster of 2014 in which a plane flying over the Donbas region of Ukraine was shot down by a Russian missile, killing all 298 people on board. A Dutch court found two Russian agents and a separatist leader guilty of the crime in absentia.
