"The facts are that the Azerbaijani civil plane was damaged from the outside on Russian territory, near Grozny, and nearly lost control. We also know that our plane has been rendered uncontrollable due to radio-electronic warfare," he stated.
The AZAL flight, en route from Baku to Grozny in Russia's Chechen Republic, crashed 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) from Aktau on the Caspian Sea coast on Wednesday.
Kazakh authorities reported that 38 people were killed in the crash of the Embraer 190 aircraft, which had 67 people on board, while 29 survived. Investigations into the incident are ongoing in both Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan.