Rus­sia has so far re­sist­ed pres­sure from Azer­bai­jan to admit re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the plane crash in Kaza­khstan. Since Wednes­day, the Krem­lin has re­fused to com­ment on claims that a Rus­sian mis­sile caused the crash. Two days after an Azer­bai­jan Air­lines plane crashed in Aktau, Kaza­khstan, Azer­bai­jan ap­pears to be in­creas­ing pres­sure on Rus­sia. Al­though an in­ves­ti­ga­tion is still un­der­way in Kaza­khstan, pre­lim­i­nary re­sults have been leaked to the press. With an ac­ci­den­tal Rus­sian air de­fense mis­sile strike now the lead­ing the­o­ry be­hind the crash, more and more Azer­bai­jani of­fi­cials are call­ing on Rus­sia to admit re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. The Azer­bai­jan Air­lines flight J2-8243 crashed on Wednes­day in a field near Aktau, in west­ern Kaza­khstan. Of the 67 pas­sen­gers on­board, 38 died and 29 were hos­pi­tal­ized, some with se­vere in­juries. The plane wasn't sup­posed to land in Aktau. The air­craft had taken off from Baku, in Azer­bai­jan, on Wednes­day morn­ing and was due to land in Grozny, Rus­sia, an area that has re­cent­ly been heav­i­ly tar­get­ed by Ukraini­an drones, when some­thing hap­pened to it that some sur­vivors later de­scribed as a col­li­sion with a bird. Videos of the emer­gen­cy land­ing near Aktau show the plane gain­ing al­ti­tude, then sharply de­scend­ing be­fore crash­ing to the ground and catch­ing fire. Other videos showed the wrecked air­craft lying in the field. Apart from the dam­age caused by the crash, the videos show the fuse­lage rid­dled with small holes. Some ex­perts, in­clud­ing those DW spoke to, said these holes may be at­tribut­ed to a strike by Rus­sia's an­ti-air­craft sys­tems. In­ves­ti­ga­tion un­der­way Kaza­khstan has launched an in­ves­ti­ga­tion into the caus­es of the in­ci­dent. An in­ves­tiga­tive com­mis­sion es­tab­lished by the coun­try's prime min­is­ter will in­clude the par­tic­i­pa­tion of, among oth­ers, a deputy prime min­is­ter and the lead­er­ship of sev­er­al min­istries. The com­mis­sion is said to be col­lab­o­rat­ing with Azer­bai­jan. As of Fri­day evening local time, no de­tails of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion have been an­nounced by any gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial. Kaza­khstan's par­lia­men­tary speak­er, Maulen Ashim­bayev, said Thurs­day in­ves­ti­ga­tors didn't yet know what had caused the tragedy. He also called the the­o­ry of a Rus­sian an­ti-air­craft sys­tem strike spec­u­la­tion. "Spread­ing such al­le­ga­tions is not right and un­eth­i­cal," he said. This re­ac­tion cor­re­sponds with the words of Krem­lin spokesman Dmit­ry Peskov. He has so far re­fused to com­ment on the al­le­ga­tions about the Rus­sian air de­fense sys­tem strike. In­stead, he has called on the par­ties to wait until the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in Kaza­khstan is com­plet­ed. Mean­while, Azer­bai­jan Air­lines has sus­pend­ed sev­er­al flights from Baku to seven cities in Rus­sia start­ing De­cem­ber 28. These are areas at risk of Ukraini­an drone at­tacks and where Rus­sian air de­fense sys­tems are ac­tive. In an of­fi­cial state­ment, the air­line said the plane that crashed on Wednes­day ex­pe­ri­enced "ex­ter­nal phys­i­cal and tech­ni­cal in­ter­fer­ence." After grow­ing signs of ir­ri­ta­tion on the Azer­bai­jani side went pub­lic, Rus­sian avi­a­tion au­thor­i­ties re­leased more de­tails about the cir­cum­stances lead­ing up to the plane crash. The head of Rus­sia's civil avi­a­tion au­thor­i­ty, Dmit­ry Yadrov, said Fri­day that the so-called Car­pet plan had been im­ple­ment­ed be­fore the Azer­bai­jan Air­lines plane crash due to a Ukraini­an drone at­tack. The plan means that the air­port in Grozny was closed for de­par­tures and ar­rivals and all air­craft were re­quired to leave the area. Ac­cord­ing to Yadrov, the pi­lots un­suc­cess­ful­ly at­tempt­ed to land in Grozny twice. He men­tioned that the area was cov­ered in dense fog. The crew then al­leged­ly re­fused to con­sid­er al­ter­na­tive land­ing op­tions in Rus­sia and flew to Aktau, be­fore the plane crashed in the coastal area. Pro-Krem­lin blog­gers admit a Rus­sian strike While Rus­sian state-run media ap­pear keen to avoid men­tion­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a Rus­sian mis­sile hit­ting the plane, pro-Krem­lin mil­i­tary blog­gers on Tele­gram seem to have no doubts about what hap­pened. The most pop­u­lar mil­i­tary Tele­gram chan­nels such as Rybar, Yuri Podolya­ka and Alex Park­er write that the Rus­sian an­ti-air­craft sys­tem strike seems to be the most like­ly cause of the crash. "But I am sure that the Chechens will man­age to avoid re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, and no one will be pun­ished," a post on the Alex Park­er chan­nel reads. 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