Several airlines cancel flights to Russia

MOSCOW (AFP) — Several airlines have announced the suspension of flights to Russian cities, after Western experts and the United States suggested the crash of the Azerbaijan Airlines this week may have been caused by a Russian anti-aircraft missile.

Moscow has declined to comment on reports the plane could have been accidentally shot down by its air defense.

Russia has said that Grozny, the Chechen capital where the plane was meant to land, was being attacked by Ukrainian drones that day.

It crashed near the Kazakh city of Aktau Wednesday, killing 38 of the 67 people on board.

Turkmenistan Airlines — the national carrier of the reclusive Central Asian state — was the latest airline to announce cancellations Saturday.

It said that “regular flights between Ashgabat-Moscow-Ashgabat were cancelled from 30/12/2024 to 31/01/2025,” without giving an explanation.

The decision came after United Arab Emirates airline flydubai suspended flights between Dubai and the southern Russian cities of Mineralnye Vody and Sochi that were scheduled between 27 December and 3 January.

Kazakhstan’s Qazaq Air has suspended its flights to Russia’s Urals city of Yekaterinburg until the end of January.

Earlier this week, Israeli airline El Al said it was suspending its flights to Moscow for a week.