Experts say evidence in the Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash in Kazakhstan points to a possible midair explosion, not an encounter with a flock of birds.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy directed Ukraine's Defence Intelligence (DIU) to share information about the Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash with its partners and called for putting pressure on Russia to stop lying about this.

Russian aviation authorities did not allow the plane to land in any of the multiple airports nearby, forcing the pilots to fly over the stormy Caspian Sea to try to land in the western Kazakh city of Aktau. The plane crashed close to Aktau airport.

An Azerbaijan Airlines plane, which crashed in Kazakhstan on 26 December, was downed by a Russian surface-to-air missile system (SAM). Source: Andrii Kovalenko, Head of the Centre for Countering Disinformation at the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine,

Ukraine’s stockpiles of US-supplied long-range Atacms missiles are running low, according to senior US officials. Outgoing US president Joe Biden gave Kyiv permission to launch the Atacms – which have a range of up to 300 kilometres – into Russian territory a month ago. At that point, Ukraine had an estimated 50 left in its arsenal.

After an Azerbaijan Airlines jet crashed in Kazakhstan, speculation mounted about why the plane went down and whether possible Russian air defense action may have played a role.

In our news wrap Wednesday, at least 38 are dead after an Azerbaijan Airlines flight crashed in Kazakhstan, Ukraine says Russia launched an extensive missile and drone attack on the country’s energy and fuel infrastructure,

Russia won't say if it mistakenly downed an Azerbaijani plane on Christmas. But it acknowledges the crash came amid a Ukrainian drone attack in its republic of Chechnya.

Ukraine has claimed to have struck a Russian industrial facility producing fuel for missiles, as Moscow says it has foiled several assassination plots on senior officers. At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The crash of the Azerbaijan Airlines plane is horrific. We express our condolences to Azerbaijan,” the statement read. Sybiha noted that immediately after the plane’s crash, Russian media began spreading false information about the causes of the disaster.