Russia won't say if it mistakenly downed an Azerbaijani plane on Christmas. But it acknowledges the crash came amid a Ukrainian drone attack in its republic of Chechnya.

A survivor of Wednesday’s Azerbaijan Airlines crash said the plane’s pilots tried to land in Grozny, Chechnya three times, followed by an explosion outside the plane, according to an audio recording shared by Russian TV channel RT.

Sources told Reuters the plane had been hit by Russian fire. "It was as if it was drunk - not the same plane anymore," one passenger recalled.

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,

An investigation into the deadly crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines flight in Kazakhstan earlier this week came after the passenger plane experienced “physical and technical external interference,” the carrier said Friday.

The Kremlin has refused to comment, but Russia's civil aviation agency said the situation in Chechnya was "very complicated" at the time.

Russia's aviation watchdog said on Friday that an Azerbaijan Airlines plane which crashed in Kazakhstan on Wednesday had decided to reroute from its original destination in Chechnya amid dense fog and a local alert over Ukrainian drones.

An Azerbaijan MP has blamed Russia for shooting down the passenger plane that crashed in Kazakhstan, describing the situation as "impossible to deny." The plane crash, which killed 38 people, was first reported on December 25,

A minister says all the survivors "heard blast sounds" over Grozny before the plane was diverted to Kazakhstan.

A U.S. official tells NBC News there are early indications that the passenger plane that crashed in Kazakhstan may have been hit by a Russian anti-aircraft system. The official said if it turns out to be the case,