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.

It was Christmas Day when a passenger plane crashed in western Kazakhstan, near the city of Aktau. Out of 67 people on board, 38 died and

Experts say evidence in the Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash in Kazakhstan points to a possible midair explosion, not an encounter with a flock of birds.