The head of the Defense Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine Kyrylo Budanov said that the Embraer 190 aircraft of the Azerbaijan Airlines airline, which operated flight JS-8432 and crashed near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan, was shot down by the russian Pantsir-S1 anti-aircraft missile system located on the territory of russia.
He stated this in comments to The War Zone project.
"As far as we know, the jet was shot down by a Russian Pantsir S1 air defense system on Russian terrain," Budanov noted.
A U.S. representative also told the publication that the russian air defense system could have hit the plane.
As the Ukrainian News agency earlier reported, the Euronews channel wrote, citing sources in the Azerbaijani government, that the Embraer 190 aircraft was attacked by an anti-aircraft missile launched from a russian air defense complex.
And the Azerbaijani news channel AnewZ reported that the russians had banned the damaged plane from landing at three of their airports. Instead, they told the pilots to fly to Aktau in western Kazakhstan.
The Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer 190 crashed at the Aktau airport on December 25. It was flying from Baku to Grozny.
There were 67 people on board the plane: 62 passengers and five crew members. 39 people were killed.
We previously reported that russian state media and pro-kremlin media are withholding information from russians that the Embraer 190 was hit by an anti-aircraft missile.
Who we are: About us, Contacts. How we write news and our principles: Editorial code. We did our best. If you found this valuable – please support us.
To request a correction, please send an email.