Russian air defences may have shot down an Azerbaijan Airlines flight after misidentifying it, according to US military sources.

Two unnamed officials who spoke to Sky News’ US partner NBC News said America had intelligence indicating Russia may have believed the flight was a drone and engaged its air defences.

It added that this was down, in part, due to the plane’s irregular flight pattern and altitude.

The report comes after US national security spokesperson John Kirby said on Friday that Washington had “seen some early indications that would certainly point to the possibility that this jet was brought down by Russian air defence systems”.

He refused to elaborate, citing an ongoing investigation.

The plane had been flying from Azerbaijan’s capital Baku to Grozny, the regional capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya, on Christmas Day.

During its flight, it turned toward Kazakhstan and later crashed around two miles from Aktau while making an attempt to land after flying east across the Caspian Sea.

The crash killed 38 people and left all of the 29 survivors injured.

Azerbaijan observed a national day of mourning after the incident – as footage from inside the aircraft emerged.

Azerbaijan’s transport minister Rashad Nabiyev told the country’s media that “preliminary conclusions by experts point at external impact” and witness testimony did as well.

He added: “The type of weapon used in the impact will be determined during the probe.”

Azerbaijan Airlines has since suspended flights to a number of Russian cities.

Read more from Sky News:
Italian journalist detained by Iranian police
Two sailors die on separate yachts during race
South Korea’s parliament impeaches acting president

A spokesperson for the Kremlin declined to comment on the crash, saying it would be up to investigators to determine the cause.

Dmitry Peskov said: “The air incident is being investigated, and we don’t believe we have the right to make any assessments until the conclusions are made as a result of the investigation.”

The crash was said to have taken place during a Ukrainian drone attack.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy blamed Russia in a post on social media.

‘As if someone hit me with an axe’

Passengers and crew who survived the crash told Azerbaijani media that they heard loud noises as the aircraft was circling over Grozny.

Aydan Rahimli, a flight attendant, said that after one noise oxygen masks were automatically released and she went to perform first aid on a colleague, Zulfugar Asadov, and then heard another bang.

Mr Asadov said the noises sounded like something hitting the plane from outside.

Shortly afterwards, he sustained a sudden injury like a “deep wound, the arm was lacerated as if someone hit me in the arm with an axe,” he said.

Two other survivors described their experiences on the flight.

Jerova Salihat told Azerbaijani television that “something exploded” near her leg and Vafa Shabanova said there had been “two explosions in the sky, and an hour and a half later the plane crashed to the ground.”

If proven the plane crashed after being hit by Russian air defences, it would be the second deadly aviation incident linked to the Kremlin’s conflict with Ukraine.

Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down by a Russian missile according to investigators, killing all 298 people aboard, in 2014.

In Russia, size matters when it comes to family.

Just look at the Asachyovs. Vera and her husband Timofey have eight children – from 18-year-old Sofiya to 18-month-old Marusya – and they’ve just been crowned Moscow Family of the Year.

“It’s a great honour and joy,” Vera Asachyova told Sky News when asked how it felt to win.

“It brings pride to our family, not only my husband and I but for the children and their grandmothers and grandfathers.”

And that’s not their only award.

Having had so many children, they’ve also been honoured with the prestigious Order of Parental Glory, which Vera proudly wears pinned to her chest.

The family’s beaming faces are even on billboards around town.

They’re portrayed as the model family doing their patriotic duty.

That’s because Russia’s birth rate is at a quarter-of-a-century low and the state wants others to follow the Asachyovs’ lead.

Official data shows 599,600 children were born in Russia in the first half of 2024, which is 16,000 fewer than in the same period in 2023 and the lowest since 1999.

The Kremlin called the figure “catastrophic” and is desperate to boost it.

The latest attempt is a ban on “childfree propaganda”, which was passed unanimously by Russia’s lower house of parliament last month.

It’s supposedly the promotion of life without children, and anyone caught spreading it can now be fined.

But does this propaganda really exist? Even if it does, surely there are more pressing reasons why a woman might not want to have children?

For example the costs involved, or perhaps because their partner is away fighting in Ukraine, or worse, has been killed there.

I put that to Tatiana Butskaya, an MP for Russia’s ruling party, United Russia, who sits on the parliamentary committee for Family Protection.

“This is an ideology against life on earth,” she replied, referring to the so-called propaganda.

“If [our parents] had adhered to this ideology, none of us would be at this press conference today. Perhaps it would’ve been other people here, and maybe even robots.”

Vladimir Putin has previously encouraged women to have at least three children, to secure Russia’s future.

In the same vein, Ms Butskaya went on to criticise families with only one child, calling them “strange”.

“If this family has lived together for a long time, you think, ‘Well, maybe they have illnesses? Maybe something is wrong in the family’. Right?

“They’ve lived together for 30 years and only given birth to only one child. There’s something wrong there.”

According to the authorities, childfree propaganda is everywhere – in films, on the internet and throughout the media. But that’s not how it feels walking around Moscow.

Pretty much everywhere you look there are huge billboards promoting family and motherhood. The message on one reads “we have room to grow” in Russian.

Russia insists women still have the right not to have children, but feminist activists like Zalina Marshenkulova believe that’s no longer true.

The prominent blogger left Russia soon after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and was charged in absentia with “justifying terrorism” by a Russian court earlier this year.

“It’s reproductive violence,” she told Sky News, referring to the ban on childfree propaganda. “It’s another repressive law they needed to turn all women into mechanisms for reproducing slaves.

“If you’re smart, if you love freedom, if you respect yourself, you can’t live in Russia. That’s what they try to say to us by this stupid law.”

Read more from Sky News:
Putin open to peace talks in Slovakia
‘NATO Santa’ shot down in apparent propaganda

A low birth rate isn’t Russia’s only demographic problem, of course. It also has a rising mortality rate, made worse by the war in Ukraine.

Stopping the war would help boost the population. But that’s not discussed.

Apparently, childfree propaganda is the bigger issue.

Weavers of Ireland’s famous Donegal tweed have called for a special protected status for their product, as the craft industry battles a raft of cheaper imitations branding themselves as “Donegals”. 

Urgent efforts are under way to take advantage of a change in EU policy, which could see non-food and drink products receive the same protected designation as champagne or parma ham.

Currently, a textile manufacturer anywhere in the world can produce fabric and call it Donegal tweed, often vastly undercutting the genuine producers.

“It’s not great,” says Kieran Molloy, a sixth-generation weaver at Molloy & Sons.

He says the unrestricted use of the term Donegal “is making people think it’s a craft product, when in fact maybe it’s coming from an enormous mill in the UK or in China or Italy”.

“When people maybe think of Donegal, and they’re thinking of mountains and sheep and the craft, a lot of the time that’s not what they’re getting.”

Donegal tweed is a woollen fabric with neps – or flecks – of distinctive colours spun into the yarn as its main characteristic.

The industry hopes to be awarded a Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) following a 2022 decision by the European Commission to widen the categories of goods that could be protected. This would mean only fabric produced in Co Donegal could be described as a Donegal tweed.

Patrick Temple is CEO of Donegal’s largest tweed producer, Magee Weaving, and also chair of the Donegal Tweed Association.

He says the glut of foreign imposters “does detract from the business,” adding: “It also creates a mixed message for the consumer.

“The wonderful thing about a PGI, if we’re lucky enough to obtain it, is that it creates a pure message to the consumer and they know they’re buying a genuine fabric woven in Donegal.”

Magee has celebrity fans like Sex And The City actor Sarah Jessica Parker, a regular visitor to Co Donegal.

In some ways, the tweed is a victim of its own popularity, which means larger international brands can put reproductions on the market for far lower prices than the Donegal producers.

Marks & Spencer has a range of men’s wool clothing marketed with the word “Donegal”, which features small flecks of colour.

A blazer, with the fabric woven in England and constructed in Cambodia, retails for €205 in Ireland, less than half the price of many of Magee’s authentic Donegal tweed blazers.

Mr Temple examined the M&S jacket for Sky News. “It’s a pleasant blazer, in a natural wool,” he says.

“It’s emulating, trying to be a Donegal. But unfortunately, it’s not woven in Donegal, there’s a small fleck there but we can’t call it a Donegal tweed.”

“It undercuts our position in the region of Donegal, as the genuine weavers of Donegal tweed,” he adds.

Read more on Ireland:
Ireland election results in maps and charts
Man found dead after questioned over schoolboy murder

Marks & Spencer stops short of describing its clothing as “Donegal tweed”, and does not claim the fabric is made in Ireland, but did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

The Donegal weavers have enlisted the expertise of colleagues in Scotland, where the famous Harris tweed has enjoyed protection from an act of parliament passed in 1993.

The legislation means that only wool handwoven on the Outer Hebrides can be described as Harris tweed within the UK.

Lorna Macaulay, the outgoing CEO of the Harris Tweed Authority, has held several meetings with the Donegal weavers, and says the geographic protection is vital.

Without the “absolutely pivotal” 1993 law, she says “we have no doubt that this [Harris tweed] industry would not have survived… it simply couldn’t have”.

“The protection it has brought has forever secured the definition of Harris tweed.”

Ms Macaulay says an appreciation of the shared culture has led to close cooperation between the weavers in Scotland and Ireland.

“When the Donegal people approached us, we didn’t consider ourselves as rivals or competitors, and in fact a really strong handwoven sector lifts all boats. There is a real will to work together,” she adds.

Read more from Sky News:
Most mispronounced words of 2024
Mosh pit nappy to avoid queues at gigs sells out

The Donegal weavers hope the Scottish input will strengthen their campaign. They want the incoming Irish government to help press Brussels for the coveted protected status.

It could take 12 to 18 months, admits Mr Temple, “but it’s really gaining momentum, and we hope it’ll be sooner rather than later”.