Russia has released a chilling propaganda video in which Moscow’s defence systems blow up Santa Claus and his reindeer, as the Kremlin remains silent on accusations it killed 38 people after it shot down an Azerbaijani passenger plane.
The propaganda video, released on pro-Russian Telegram channels, shows a ‘Western’ Santa flying over a snowy Moscow while carrying a can of Coca Cola while wishing Russian citizens a merry Christmas.
He can be seen carrying missiles in his sleigh that resemble a NATO Trident or Minuteman III ICBM and others.
But within seconds, he is blown up with a festive missile that leaves a firework in its wake.
The dark video then cuts to a missile operator sitting with Grandfather Frost, a Russian version of Santa Claus, who asks: ‘That’s it?’
The missile operator replies: ‘That’s it, the target has been destroyed.’
Grandfather Frost then eerily says: ‘Right, we don’t need anything foreign in our skies. Happy New Year!’
It comes just two days after Russia was accused of shooting down an Azerbaijian Airlines plane, killing 38.
Santa Claus was seen getting blown up with a festive missile that left a firework in its wake
The propaganda video showed a ‘Western’ Santa flying over a snowy Moscow while carrying a can of Coca Cola and several NATO missiles in his sleigh
The dark video then cuts to a missile operator sitting with Grandfather Frost, a Russian version of Santa Claus (pictured)
Vladimir Putin (pictured) has been accused of allowing the Azerbaijan Airlines plane to be blown up
The Embraer passenger jet had flown from Azerbaijan’s capital Baku to Grozny, in Russia’s southern Chechnya region, before veering off hundreds of miles across the Caspian Sea.
It crashed on the opposite shore of the Caspian after what Russia’s aviation watchdog said was an emergency that may have been caused by a bird strike.
Flight data recovered from the downed Flight J2-8432 suggest the flight suffered ‘possible control issues’ and ‘strong GPS jamming and spoofing’ during its approach on Grozny, according to Flightradar24.
In a final transmission in Kazakhstan, the hero pilot hauntingly told air traffic control, ‘I can’t execute, control is lost!’ before the plane crashed nose-down, killing 38.
As preliminary investigations turned up evidence that Russia may have struck the doomed jet with a surface-to-air missile, focus turns to whether Putin’s forces interfered with the flight to cause it to crash in a bid to cover up the mistake.
Azerbaijan news outlet Caliber, citing government sources, suggested the plane was subjected to ‘air defence fire and electronic warfare systems’ that jammed its radars during the crossing.
Caliber speculated the plane’s radars were jammed with the ‘goal’ of having the aircraft crash into the water ‘where all witnesses would perish and the aircraft would sink’.
The plane was refused permission to make an emergency landing in Russia and told instead to cross the Caspian Sea in a major diversion to Kazakhstan. Russia told Kazakhstan the crew had decided to make the perilous journey.
Damage to the fuselage of the plane after the horror Christmas Day crash
Sixty seven people were on board the flight when it crashed, including 62 passengers
The moment a passenger plane hit the ground in a fireball in a Christmas Day crash landing
A Russian Pantsir-S1 self-propelled, medium-range surface-to-air missile and anti-aircraft artillery system
Emergency services are pictured above at the scene of the plane crash
The Kremlin today refused to discuss the allegations against Russia over the crashed plane in Aktau, Kazakhstan, amid growing evidence a Pantsir-S air defence missile catastrophically damaged the Embraer jet.
‘An investigation into this aviation incident is underway and until the conclusions that will be made as a result of the investigation [are announced], we do not consider ourselves entitled to give any assessments,’ said Putin’s spokesman.
‘And we will not do so.’
Separate investigations by Azeri and Kazakh officials continue to probe the cause, and expect black boxes recovered from the crash site in Aktau will shed light on the tragedy within the next two weeks.
Preliminary investigations suggest that a surface-to-air missile was fired at the flight from Naursky as the military engaged Ukrainian drones with air defences, per Azerbaijan government officials.
A passenger on the plane that crashed in Kazakhstan told Reuters that there was at least one loud bang as it approached its original destination of Grozny in southern Russia.
‘I thought the plane was going to fall apart,’ Subhonkul Rakhimov, one of the passengers, told Reuters from hospital, adding that he had begun to recite prayers and prepare for the end after hearing the bang.
After the loud bang, the plane had acted strangely as if it was drunk, Rakhimov said.
‘It was as if it was drunk – not the same plane anymore,’ he said.
