Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

An Azerbaijan Airlines plane carrying 62 passengers and five crew has crashed while making an emergency landing at a Kazakhstan airport, with 29 survivors, including two children, taken to hospital.

Videos on local media showed a large explosion after the aircraft crashed into an empty field. Images from the scene showed passengers climbing out of the tail of the fuselage aided by emergency workers.

Those aboard were from Azerbaijan, Russia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, Russian state Ria news agency reported, citing Kazakhstan’s transport ministry.

Local media outlets reported that nine of those taken to hospital were in serious condition and that search and rescue operations were under way.

The plane, an Embraer 190, was travelling to Grozny in the southern Russian republic of Chechnya from Azerbaijan’s capital Baku, but was diverted to Aktau after flying into heavy fog.

Early media reports suggested that the plane hit a flock of birds, which affected control of the aircraft.

“After a collision with birds, due to an emergency situation on board the aircraft, its commander decided to go to an alternate airfield and Aktau was chosen,” Ria reported, citing Russia’s aviation agency Rosaviatsia. Local media also shared unconfirmed reports of an explosion of an oxygen canister onboard, leading many passengers to lose consciousness.

Baku has sent an official delegation to Kazakhstan to investigate the incident, Azerbaijan’s APA news agency said. The country’s president, Ilham Aliyev, left an informal summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States in Russia to return to Baku. He expressed his condolences to the those affected by the crash.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russian President Vladimir Putin had also extended his condolences to Azerbaijan’s leader.

Chechnya’s leader Ramzan Kadyrov expressed his condolences to the relatives of the deceased on social media. “We pray to the Almighty for [the survivors’] recovery.”

Photos on social media showed relatives gathering in Grozny airport to wait for news of their loved ones.

One man at Grozny airport said he had just received a video in which he could see his nephew had survived the crash. “Of course I am very happy,” he told a Ria news reporter.

STORY: :: A New York taxi jumping the sidewalk

injures 7 people on Christmas Day

:: Police said the incident happened after

the cab driver suffered a medical episode

:: December 25, 2024

:: New York

The incident took place in Midtown Manhattan near Macy’s flagship store in Herald Square near the corner of West 34th Street and Avenue of the Americas, or Sixth Avenue. The store, with its elaborately decorated display windows, is a magnet for tourists and native New Yorkers around the holidays.

In addition to the 58-year-old taxi driver, the injured included a 9-year-old boy, two women aged 49 and four other women aged 19, 37 and 41, police added.

One 49-year-old woman with a leg injury, the 9-year-old boy who suffered a cut and the 41-year-old woman who sustained an injury to her head were taken to hospital, police said.

The remaining three pedestrians declined medical attention, according to police, which added that all injuries were non-life-threatening.

Media images of the cab showed a heavily damaged vehicle with broken parts and dents all over it.

Stay informed with free updates

Simply sign up to the War in Ukraine myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.

Russia has carried out a Christmas Day attack on Ukraine’s energy system, leaving more than half a million people without heating, water and electricity. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the attack, the 13th large-scale assault of 2024 on the country’s grid, was “deliberate” and not a coincidence. “What could be more inhuman?” he wrote on X.

About 50 of the 70 missiles fired in the attack were intercepted, along with a “significant” portion of the more than 100 attack drones deployed, he added.

This year Ukrainians marked Christmas Day on December 25 for the second time, after switching to the western Gregorian calendar last year. The decision to stop celebrating Christmas on January 7 in line with the Orthodox calendar was made by Kyiv to break with Russian influence.

Oleh Syniehubov, governor of Ukraine’s eastern Kharkiv region, told Ukraine’s national television news that the attack had left more than 500,000 people without heating, water and electricity.

Temperatures across Ukraine are around freezing point.

Heating supplies were also cut in some areas of Ukraine’s Ivano-Frankivsk and Dnipropetrovsk regions, in the west and south of the country. 

Ukraine’s energy grid operator, Ukrenergo, urged consumers to limit consumption by not switching on multiple appliances at once, adding that the system was still recovering from the previous Russian attack on December 13.

Ukraine’s largest private energy company, DTEK, said that its power stations had been damaged and one of its long-term employees killed.

Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andriy Sybiha, said on X that the attack reflects Russian President Vladimir Putin’s response to “those who spoke about illusionary ‘Christmas ceasefire’”.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said last week that Zelenskyy had rejected his proposal for a ceasefire and prisoner exchange on the January 7 Orthodox Christmas.

Ukraine denied that such a proposal was ever on the table, asking Hungary to “refrain from manipulations” regarding the war. On Friday, Heorhii Tykhyi, spokesperson for Ukraine’s foreign ministry, described it as “PR, a move” by Orbán.