Baku, Azerbaijan - Azerbaijan Airlines said Friday that the early results of an investigation into the plane that crashed in Kazakhstan pointed to "physical and technical external interference," amid growing speculation it was hit by a Russian air defense system.

Announcing the suspension of flights to 10 Russian airports, Azerbaijan Airlines said the decision was "based on the preliminary results of the investigation into the crash of the Embraer 190 aircraft operating the Baku-Grozny flight J2-8243 of Azerbaijan Airlines due to physical and technical external interference."

The jet crashed on Wednesday near the Kazakh city of Aktau, killing 38 of the 67 people on board.

Ukrainian and US officials have blamed the disaster on a Russian missile launched after Kyiv had deployed drones in the area, with photos of the aircraft's tail section show damage that resembles the impact holes of shrapnel from anti-aircraft weapons.

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On Friday, the head of the Russian aviation authority Rosaviatsiya added more grist to that mill when explaining why the flight was unable to land in Grozny.

"The situation that day and during those hours in the Grozny airport area was very complicated," Dmitry Yadrov said in a statement posted on Telegram. "Ukrainian combat drones were carrying out terrorist attacks on civilian infrastructure in the Grozny and Vladikavkaz regions at that time."

No departures and arrivals were permitted in Grozny at that time, due to the danger posed by the drones, he said.

According to Yadrov, all pilots had to leave the airspace during the alert period. He did say whether the plane may have been damaged by a Ukrainian drone or a Russian anti-aircraft missile before the crash.

Yadrov added that there was dense fog in Grozny at the time. The pilot of the aircraft had made two attempts to land without success before turning towards Kazakhstan, he claimed.