Sanner: Azerbaijani Plane Crash Was ‘Truly Accidental’ and Russia Won’t ‘Admit’ Guilt

RUSH TRANSCRIPT:
BLITZER: “Beth Sanner, what‘s your assessment?”
SANNER: “Well, you know, Russia has a lot of, um, concerns about admitting it in this case. It‘s a little different, in a way, from MH17 where, you know, these were separatists in the Donbas region using Russian, a Russian interceptor. In this case, I think it was truly accidental if it is what it looks like and that they were trying to shoot down drones and they accidentally hit this airliner from Azerbaijan. And this is an area of the world in the Caucasus where Russia has lost a lot of influence. And they are also very dependent on Azerbaijan for exporting and importing, particularly exporting their oil and gas. So they do not want to become even less popular there. So, you know, I don‘t think that they‘re going to admit it unless they have to. But the evidence looks pretty strong as it‘s coming in.”