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

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.

On 25 December, 38 people died when an Azerbaijan Airlines flight, which had been due to land in Russia, crash-landed in Kazakhstan. The circumstances around the crash remain unclear, but limited evidence so far suggests it may have been damaged by missiles fired by a Russian air-defence system as it tried to land in Chechnya.

An Azerbaijani minister suggested Friday that an airliner that crashed this week was hit by a weapon, citing expert analysis and survivor testimony indicating that the plane was struck from the outside.

The flight was en route from the Azerbaijani capital of Baku to Grozny, in Russia’s south, when it diverted and attempted an emergency landing in Kazakhstan.

"No one claims that it was done on purpose," an Azerbaijan official told Reuters. They added their government "expects the Russian side to confess."

Two U.S. military officials tell NBC News the U.S. has intelligence indicating that the Russians may have misidentified the Azerbaijan Airlines flight that went down earlier this week, and shot it down with an air defense system.

The crash of the Azerbaijan Airlines flight prompted several airlines to suspend flights to Russia.