The chairman of the upper house of the Kazakh parliament - the Senate, Maulen Ashimbayev, said today that the causes of yesterday's crash of the Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer 190 plane near the Kazakh city of Aktau on the Caspian Sea are still unknown.
"None of the following countries - Azerbaijan, Russia and Kazakhstan - are interested in hiding information. All available information will be made public," Ashimbayev said, quoted by Reuters.
According to information received so far, 38 people died in the crash of the plane, which was flying from the Azerbaijani capital Baku to the capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya - Grozny. There were 67 people on board. The plane had diverted from an area where Moscow has recently been defending itself from Ukrainian drone attacks, Reuters notes.
A Ukrainian representative said that the Azerbaijan Airlines passenger plane that crashed near the Kazakh city of Aktau yesterday was hit by Russian air defense, Ukrinform reported. Andriy Kovalenko, head of the Ukrainian Center for Combating Disinformation at the National Security and Defense Council, wrote this on the Telegram application, the Ukrainian news agency specified.
"The "Embraer 190" of Azerbaijan Airlines, flying from Baku to Grozny, was hit by Russian air defenses," Kovalenko wrote, quoted by Ukrinform.
He criticized Russia for not closing the airspace over the capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya - Grozny, which could have prevented the tragedy. "The plane was damaged by the Russians and was directed towards Kazakhstan, instead of making an emergency landing in Grozny and thus saving human lives," Kovalenko added.