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,

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Monday blamed the Russian war in Ukraine for the deadly Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash in Kazakhstan. "Russia's brutal war against Ukraine is affecting more and more innocent people - even outside Ukraine. This is shown by the air disaster in Aktau, which must be fully investigated," Scholz wrote on X.