Azerbaijan held a day of mourning on Thursday for the dozens of victims of an airliner crash in Kazakhstan, as questions were being asked over the cause of the disaster.

Azerbaijan Airlines’ Embraer 190 was en route from Baku to the Russian city of Grozny when it was diverted for reasons yet unclear and crashed while making an attempt to land in Aktau in Kazakhstan.

The head of Ukraine's National Security and Defence Council's Center for Countering Disinformation, Andriy Kovalenko, also claimed that the crash was caused by the Russian air defence fire.