Uzbekistan Airways airliners have changed their routes when flying to Europe to avoid Russian and Belarusian airspace as a "precautionary measure," the Uzbek news outlet Repost reported on Jan. 28.
The news comes a month after an Azerbaijani airliner crashed in Kazakhstan after flying through the Russian airspace. Baku said that Russian air defenses mistakenly opened fire against the plane, bringing it down and killing 38 of the 67 people on board.
"These are simply precautionary measures and, to some extent, route optimization," the press service of Uzbekistan Airways was quoted as saying by Repost, claiming the change is not directly connected to the downing of the Azerbaijani plane.
Since Jan. 20, Uzbekistan Airways airliners fly over Azerbaijan and Turkey when heading west.
The Azerbaijani airliner was traveling from Baku to Grozny in Russia's Chechen Republic on Dec. 25, 2024, but was forced to change course and crashed near the Kazakh city of Aktau. Independent observers and Azerbaijani officials said that it was hit unintentionally by Russian air defense fire while attempting to land at Grozny’s airport.
The airport was allegedly under a Ukrainian drone attack, and Russia’s military failed to notify the airport in time to deny all civilian passenger planes entry into its airspace to avoid suffering fire by the activated anti-air missile system.
Russian authorities claimed the plane crashed due to hitting birds, but Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev directly accused Russia of downing the plane and demanded an admission of guilt and reparations, straining relations among otherwise close allies.
Tim Zadorozhnyy
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