Did Russian air defence down the Azerbaijani plane in Kazakhstan?

Kyiv, Ukraine – Russian aerial defence officials could precise perchance person struck an Azerbaijani rider pitchy implicit Chechnya aft panicking during a Ukrainian drone attack, analysts and experts from Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan person told Al Jazeera.

Moscow mightiness person besides compounded what 1 adept described arsenic a “crime” by not letting the damaged level onshore adjacent and alternatively forcing it to alert to Kazakhstan.

The investigation by these experts comes amid mounting reports quoting unnamed Azerbaijani officials and different analysts pointing fingers astatine Russia for the crash, successful which astatine slightest 38 radical were killed.

The Kremlin claimed that the AZAL 8432 formation with 67 passengers connected committee deed a flock of birds aboriginal Wednesday aft it entered Russian airspace to onshore successful Grozny, Chechnya’s administrative capital.

But wrong hours, photos and videos of the level surfaced, seemingly showing heavy holes and aggregate pockmarks connected its tail.

The harm is akin to that caused by a onslaught by Pantsir-S1, a Soviet-era defence strategy Chechnya uses to repel Ukrainian drone attacks, accidental experts. At the time, Chechen aerial defence forces were repelling an onslaught by Ukrainian drones, claiming to person changeable down “all of them”.

“No vertebrate tin ever origin specified damage; it’s absurd and transgression to assertion specified a thing,” a Kazakh aviation information adept told Al Jazeera.

He insisted connected anonymity due to the fact that Kazakh authorities arrested blogger Azamat Sarsenbayev for 10 days aft helium took photos and videos astatine the clang site.

“The information that they jailed the blogger shows that they were pursuing an acquisition from the Kremlin,” Alisher Ilkhamov, caput of Central Asia Due Diligence, a London-based deliberation tank, told Al Jazeera.

Meanwhile, the level was “exposed to GPS jamming and spoofing” that are routinely utilized against drone attacks, according to Flightradar24, an planetary formation tracking service.

Russian aviation authorities did not let the level to onshore successful immoderate of the aggregate airports nearby, forcing the pilots to alert implicit the stormy Caspian Sea to effort to onshore successful the occidental Kazakh metropolis of Aktau. The level crashed adjacent to Aktau airport.

“They wanted to constitute it disconnected arsenic a vertebrate strike, but successful the extremity the Kazakh blogger ruined their plans,” Ilkhamov said.

Kazakhstan has for decades been 1 of Russia’s closest allies successful Central Asia, and its President Qasym-Jomart Toqayev invited Russian forces to assistance his authorities quell a fashionable uprising successful 2022.

The Kremlin has truthful acold refused to remark connected the mounting accusations that Russia mightiness person been progressive successful the downing of the plane.

“I’ve got thing to add,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told journalists successful Moscow connected Friday. “We don’t consciousness entitled to springiness assessments, won’t bash it.” Moscow has cautioned against speculation into the causes of the level crash, urging that investigators beryllium allowed to implicit their probes first.

But if Russian aerial defence did bring the level down, the Kremlin and Chechnya’s person Ramzan Kadyrov “broke each and each planetary regularisation they could”, according to Ihor Romanenko, erstwhile lawman caput of Ukraine’s wide unit of equipped forces who focused connected aerial defence for decades.

“They committed a crime. They got scared, reasoning possibly it was a provocation,” helium said, ascribing the negligence to Kadyrov’s “psychosis” implicit caller Ukrainian drone attacks that deed and damaged subject sites successful Grozny.

As for the Russian determination to not let the level to onshore wrong its territory, Romanenko said: “They wanted to drown these tired, stressed, wounded people.”

Meanwhile, immoderate Russian media outlets claimed it was Ukrainian drones that damaged the plane, portion Kremlin-run tv channels insisted that birds and fog caused the crash.

“They’re raving. It was shrapnel that damaged” the plane, Andrey Pronin, who pioneered the usage of drones successful the Ukrainian subject and heads a schoolhouse for the pilots of unmanned craft successful Kyiv, told Al Jazeera.

Baku has not officially announced the results of its investigation, but a drawstring of Azerbaijani officials and experts person insisted that Russian aerial defence caused the crash.

In 2014, a Malaysian rider level crashed implicit separatist-controlled areas successful southeastern Ukraine.

All 283 passengers and 15 unit members were killed, and a Dutch-led probe concluded 2 years aboriginal that a Russian Buk rocket changeable the level down. Several separatists told this newsman days aft the onslaught that they had changeable the level down mistaking it for a Ukrainian subject aircraft.

The Azerbaijani level clang volition not “sever” ties betwixt Moscow and Baku, but it has already damaged Russia’s representation successful the oil-rich Caspian nation, a Baku-based expert said.

“Baku volition hardly opt to sever ties with Moscow, but the incidental volition undoubtedly person a antagonistic interaction connected bilateral ties,” Emil Mustafayev, main exertion of the Minval Politika magazine, told Al Jazeera.

“Moreover, Russia risks losing the past remnants of its authorization among the nationalist successful Azerbaijan,” helium said. “Even those who utilized to enactment Putin presumption Russia with disdain contiguous due to the fact that of its attempts to fell the information and debar work for the tragedy.”

Chechen ruler Kadyrov is simply a erstwhile separatist strongman whose iron-fisted policies successful the mountainous, mostly-Muslim Northern Caucasus state often snub Russian national laws.

The person has been 1 of the astir vocal supporters of Russia’s full-scale penetration of Ukraine and claimed that Chechen servicemen spearhead the war.

But Al Jazeera’s investigation showed that their role successful the conflict was minimal and mostly consisted of frightening taste Russian servicemen and policing Moscow-occupied areas.