Azerbaijani plane crash will become problem for Putin and Kadyrov

The incident with the Azerbaijani plane is gaining new details and could become a problem for Putin and Kadyrov, says Oleksiy Kopytko, military analyst, former advisor to the Minister of Defense of Ukraine.
“Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev headed to St. Petersburg to attend an informal summit of CIS heads of state on December 25. However, during the flight he received information about the crash of Azerbaijan Airlines plane, which was flying Baku-Grozny, but ended up in the area of Aktau, Kazakhstan. Aliyev decided to return to Baku, created a commission to investigate the incident and said that there are different versions, but it is worth waiting for the results of the investigation,” the analyst writes on his Telegram channel.
The distance between Baku and Grozny is about 460 km including maneuvers. The distance from Grozny to Makhachkala is about 120 kilometers. That is, everything is very close. At the time of making the decision to “redirect” it must have been known that there was fog in Makhachkala.
The distance from Makhachkala to Baku is only 30 km more than to Aktau.
The experts already have a lot of questions: why was it necessary to fly across the sea to a regional airfield in another country, if it was possible to return to a modern airport in Baku, where all the service, including incident response, is at a qualitatively different level?
“Possible answers are contained in the video from the cabin of the airplane. The damage is very similar to the result of firing at the airplane from some air defense system. And these damages were received over the territory of Russia, over Chechnya or Dagestan.
As soon as this video went viral on the net, unofficial Russian channels began to actively throw in the version about the alleged attack of the plane by a “Ukrainian UAV”.
“Indirect confirmation of the version with air defense fire: Azerbaijan Airlines suspends flights from Baku to Grozny and Makhachkala until the investigation into the causes of the plane crash is completed. If the reason is bad weather and birds - why suspend flights?” the analyst asks.
Ukrainian military expert Oleksandr Kovalenko believes these and other pieces of evidence suggest the plane was hit by a short- or medium-range surface-to-air missile, possibly from the Russian Pantsir-S1 system. Kovalenko points out that the visible damage, which has been documented, clearlyindicates a Russian missile, not a drone - because a drone collision would have immediately brought down the plane.