The statement is the closest officials have come to confirming mounting suspicions that the plane was downed by a Russian air-defense system.

Azerbaijan Airlines, the carrier of the passenger jet that crashed in Kazakhstan on Christmas Day, said preliminary investigations have found the disaster occurred “as a result of physical and technical external interference,

On 25 December, 38 people died when an Azerbaijan Airlines flight, which had been due to land in Russia, crash-landed in Kazakhstan. The circumstances around the crash remain unclear, but limited evidence so far suggests it may have been hit by missiles fired by a Russian air-defence system as it tried to land in Chechnya.