Putin tries to cover up plane crash caused by Russian defence system, asks Tokayev for help

Russian President Vladimir Putin is trying to cover up the shooting down of an Azerbaijani passenger plane by Russian air defense forces in every way possible. It is even alleged that he begs President of Kazakhstan for this.

Recall, a passenger plane operated by Azerbaijan Airlines, which crashed in Kazakhstan on December 25, was reportedly downed by a Russian Pantsir-S air defense system, Reuters reported, citing anonymous sources familiar with the matter.

Four sources in Azerbaijan, privy to preliminary findings of the crash investigation, stated that the plane was indeed hit by Russian air defenses.

One source said that initial results indicate the aircraft was struck by the Russian Pantsir-S missile and gun system, and its communications were disrupted by electronic warfare systems as it approached the city of Grozny in Russia's republic of Chechnya.

Reserve colonel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Roman Svitan also says that based on the damage the plane sustained, it was attacked by an anti-aircraft missile system similar to the Pantsir.According to him, air defense forces have recently been redeployed to the North Caucasus. “It is impossible for them, especially at the time of deployment, to quickly establish communication with civilian air traffic control mechanisms. This led to the disaster. The plane that took off from Baku was supposed to land in Grozny, but was mistaken for a drone, flying over military areas. They tried to shoot it down, but the plane is still big, the missile explosion most likely occurred far from the plane itself. It flew into a cloud of shrapnel, striking elements”, expert added.

Roman Svitan says to Charter97 media outlet that any commission can very easily determine which missile and which complex's striking elements damaged this plane in the air. “The striking elements in civilian aircraft, for the most part, remain in the seats forever. Even if it fell, crashed, burned, sank — all this is easy to determine. I think that everything will be revealed in the near future, no matter how Putin tries to beg Tokayev to hide this fact. I think everything will come out”, he added.

According to him, the series of uncoordinated actionsof the dispatchers are also notable: instead of landing this plane at a nearby airfield, they hijacked it to Kazakhstan. If they had started landing it right away, there would have been no catastrophe. The plane would have landed, not a single person would have died.

“When the missile hit, most likely, the hydraulic control system pipelines of the plane were broken. While the fluid was in the hydraulic accumulators, the plane was still more or less controllable, it could have landed, and after the fluid left the system, the plane lost control and crashed. To sum it up, it’s a 90% probability that the plane was hit by a missile”, he says.

Oleg Belousov, the host of the Channel 24 YouTube channel, also analyzed the situation with the crashed AZAL plane. He noted that the passenger plane was shot down by Russian air defense forces.