3 days ago
'Audio recording of Russian military suggests Putin's troops shot down Azerbaijan plane on Christmas Day, killing 38 passengers'
The Azerbaijan Airlines plane that crashed in Kazakhstan on Christmas Day, killing 38, was shot down in an attack authorised by the Russian Ministry of Defence, according to the apparent testimonies of a Russian air defence crew.
Flight J2-8243 crash landed just short of Aktau airport on December 25. It was claimed that its navigation systems had been compromised and the plane had been shot down, possibly confused with a Ukrainian projectile by artillery in Chechnya.
Azerbaijani outlet Minval reported on Tuesday it had received audio, video and an explanatory note ostensibly signed by a Russian air defence officer, claiming the ministry had cleared the crew to shoot down a 'potential target' in 'very thick fog'.
The author claims to have been the head of the crew in Grozny when the plane was shot down.
Three audio recordings shared with the outlet reportedly included three voices claiming they had all given the operational command and fired twice at the plane.
Footage purported to show the moment the order was given to fire. The clip seen by MailOnline includes a Russian speaker listing coordinates before giving an order to 'Fire! Fire, I say!'. There is a loud explosion and then an admission the attack missed.
The camera, focused on two screens inside what appeared to be a mobile artillery system, shook after the instruction and a loud bang could be heard.
'It's on the way...' the audio continues. 'Missed! Repeat. One more time!'
MailOnline was unable to verify the authenticity of the files. Mirval said it had received an 'anonymous letter' with the multimedia evidence and what they said was a note signed by a Captain Dmitry Sergeevich Paladichuk.
Minval shared video and audio claiming to show 'The moment the Russian Defense Ministry gave the order to destroy the AZAL flight'
According to the explanatory note, at 8:11am, 'the target detection station detected a potential target, which I took on precise tracking by the [multiple rocket launcher system], which I reported to the 51st Division Command Post.'
Two minutes later, 'I was given the command to destroy the target over the phone'.
The target was 'not visible in the optics due to very thick fog, which was reported to the command post'. But within half a minute, 'I gave the command to the operator to destroy'. The first attack missed and 'I gave the command to fire again.'
The crew was said to have been commanded to 'switch to readiness' at 5:40am.
In the days before, Chechnya had assured its air defences were on standby to shoot down incoming Ukrainian drones.
A media report on December 20 noted that four drone strikes had hit Chechnya since October, with 'not a single drone' shot down despite assurances that defences were operational.
Sources told Novaya Europe at the time that aircraft defence systems had hitherto never been used during drone attacks on Chechnya.
The documents since shared with Minval describe the poor condition of the equipment available to the Chechen forces in Grozny.
'Due to poor mobile reception and a lack of functional wired communication, coordination relied heavily on unstable mobile connections,' it reads.
The outlet was unable to verify the authenticity of the letter received, or the author. It said it was in the interests of the ongoing investigation to publish the document.
The outlet also did not publish all three audio recordings, as they 'still need to be studied by investigative bodies', it said.
The crash has been under investigation for more than six months, after a preliminary report found fragments from a Pantsir-S missile lodged in the plane.
Russian President Vladimir Putin did not say that Russia had shot the plane down, but has apologised for the 'tragic incident' inside Russian airspace.
A day after the crash, Azerbaijani government officials told Euronews that there had been drone activity above Grozny at the time of the incident.
They said that the pilot of the commercial plane, travelling from Baku to Grozny, had been blocked from landing at any Russian airports despite emergency pleas.
The pilots asked for help from several different airports in Russia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, the officials said.
But the plane was barred from landing in Grozny, with the official reason given as 'fog'.
Ordered to carry on towards Kazakhstan, Flight J2-8243 crossed the Caspian Sea towards Aktau before crashing.
It ultimately came down just a few miles from Aktau, and data shows its radars were jammed as it crossed over the sea.
A source familiar with the Azerbaijani investigation told Reuters that while 'no one claims that it was done on purpose', Baku 'expects the Russian side to confess to the shooting down of the Azerbaijani aircraft'.
Most of the passengers on board were Azerbaijani. Sixteen were from Russia, and several from Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
Russia had tried to play down speculation the flight had been shot down by a Russian missile, urging patience while the investigation is carried out.
The two countries have enjoyed bilateral ties, with Azerbaijan becoming an essential partner for trade and acting as a corridor to Iran amid the war in Ukraine.
But diplomatic relations have reached a new low in recent days, as two Russian state journalists were arrested in Baku and a further around 15 more Russians arrested separately on suspicion of drug trafficking and cybercrime.
The arrests followed Russian police raids against ethnic Azerbaijanis living in Russia suspected of involvement in serious crimes in which two men died.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday that certain forces were trying to wreck Moscow's ties with Azerbaijan and that they should think hard about what they were doing, the state RIA news agency reported.
