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White House Press Secretary John Kirby said the US is seeing “early indications” that Russia may be responsible for the downing of an Azerbaijan Airlines plane that crashed on December 25, killing 38 people.
Mr. Kirby did not elaborate, but told reporters that the United States had offered to help investigate the crash.
The plane is believed to have come under fire from Russian air defense systems as it attempted to land in Chechnya before being diverted across the Caspian Sea to Kazakhstan, where it crashed.
The Kremlin declined to comment, but the head of the Russian Civil Aviation Agency said that the situation in Chechnya is “very difficult” due to Ukrainian drone strikes in the region.
Mr. Kirby said the signs the US saw went beyond the widely circulated photos of the damaged plane, the Washington Post reported.
Aviation experts and other Azerbaijani experts believe that the plane’s GPS systems were affected by radio-electronic interference, and then it was damaged by shrapnel from the explosions of Russian anti-aircraft missiles.
Azerbaijan did not blame Russia, but the country’s transport minister said the plane had suffered “external interference” and was damaged internally and externally when it tried to land.
“All (survivors) without exception stated that they heard three explosions when the plane was over Grozny,” said Rashad Nabiev.
Mr. Nabiev said that the investigators are now finding out “what weapon, more precisely, what type of missile was used.”
However, pro-government MP Rasim Musabekov was clear: “The plane was shot down over the territory of Russia, in the sky over Grozny. It is impossible to deny it.”
He told AFP that the plane was damaged and the pilot requested an emergency landing in Grozny. Instead of directing him to nearby airports, he said he was “sent far” across the Caspian Sea without GPS.
Flight attendant Zulfukar Asadav described the moments when the plane was hit by “some external impact” over Chechnya.
“The impact inside caused panic. We tried to calm them down, put them down. At that moment there was another blow, my hand was injured.”
The pilots of the Embraer 190 are credited with saving 29 of those on board as they managed to land part of the plane despite being killed in the crash.
The Kremlin refused to comment on the increasing number of reports that the “Azerbaijan Airlines” plane was shot down by the Russian Air Force.
“The investigation of this aviation incident is ongoing, and until conclusions are drawn based on the results of the investigation, we do not consider ourselves entitled to make any assessments,” said press secretary Dmitriy Piaskov.
The authorities of Kazakhstan are providing assistance to the victims and are cooperating closely with Azerbaijan in the investigation.
Reports in Baku indicate that both Russia and Kazakhstan have proposed that a committee of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a regional organization dominated by Russia, investigate the disaster, but Azerbaijan has demanded an international investigation instead.
