Several airlines have cancelled flights to Russian cities after Western experts and the US suggested the crash of the Azerbaijan Airlines this week may have been caused by a Russian anti-aircraft missile.
However, Moscow has declined to comment on reports that the plane could have been accidentally shot down by its air defence.
According to Russia, Grozny, the Chechen capital where the plane was meant to land, was being attacked by Ukrainian drones that day.
Newspot recalls that the plane crashed near the Kazakh city of Aktau Wednesday, killing 38 of the 67 people on board.
Reacting to the incident, Turkmenistan Airlines, the national carrier of the reclusive Central Asian state was the latest airline to announce cancellations on Saturday.
The Airlines announced that regular flights between Ashgabat-Moscow-Ashgabat were cancelled from 30/12/2024 to 31/01/2025, without giving an explanation.
This is coming after UAE airline Flydubai announced the suspension of flights between Dubai and the southern Russian cities of Mineralnye Vody and Sochi that were scheduled between December 27 and January 3.
Similarly, Kazakhstan’s Qazaq Air has suspended its flights to Russia’s Urals city of Yekaterinburg until the end of January.
Also, earlier this week, Israeli airline El Al said it was suspending its flights to Moscow for a week.
