New developments in Christmas Day plane crash

38 of the 67 passengers onboard Azerbaijan Airlines flight 8243 perished, when the plane crashed three days ago in Kazakhstan. Here’s where things stand today.

TOLEDO, Ohio — On Christmas Day, Azerbaijan Airlines flight 8243 crashed in Kazakhstan, killing 38 of the 67 people on board, including both pilots. An exact cause is still unknown, but that hasn’t stopped speculation.

During a call with reporters, White House national security spokesperson John Kirby was asked about early indications that a Russian missile system may have brought down the plane.

“I’m not going to get into what the early indications are that we’re looking at,” he said. Adding, “I think hopefully you can understand why I won’t do that, but we do have early indications.”

There, he stated that the U.S. has its suspicions that Russia was involved — though stopped short of confirming that — with the crash still under investigation.

But on Saturday, a statement from the Kremlin was released, in which it was announced that Russian President Vladimir Putin had a phone conversation with Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev.

“Vladimir Putin apologized for the fact that the incident happened in Russian airspace, once again offered deep and sincere condolences to the victims’ families and wished a speedy recovery to the injured,” the statement read in part.

Later in the statement, Russia says the plane attempted to land in Grozny, which was under attack by Ukraine at the time. It says its air defense system was active to repel those attacks, but notably doesn’t take responsibility for bringing the plane down, which is what many have speculate happened by accident.

As the investigation into the cause of this tragedy continues, more questions are likely to come up, but the U.S. is not jumping to any solid conclusions just yet.