The Russian Defence Ministry on Wednesday slammed the French satirical weekly magazine, Charlie Hebdo, for making a caricature of the Tu-154 military plane crash which killed at least 92 people on board.
Russia plane crash: Flight recorder retrieved from the Black Sea, defence ministry says
The Russian Ministry described the caricature of the crash as a 'poorly-created abomination' which is unworthy of attention. The plane, a Tu-154 jet, was carrying at least 60 members of the Red Army choir who were heading to Syria to entertain the Russian troops in the country for the New Year celebrations. Reports state that the plane went down off the city of Sochi into the Black Sea soon after it took off on Sunday.
Charlie Hebdo had published a caricature on Wednesday of the Tu-154 aircraft crash in the Black Sea by depicting a falling aircraft and a musician from the military choir shouting "aaaaaa" while the plane plunged. The caption of the caricature read: "The repertoire of the army choir is expanding."
The piece did not go down well with Russia where the Defence Ministry's spokesperson Major General Igor Konashenkov in a statement said: "It is degrading for any human being to even pay attention to such a poorly-created abomination," Sputniknews reported.
The Russian Transport Minister Maksim Sokolov during a televised briefing on Monday had said authorities do not believe the plane crash was an act of terrorism. However, investigators are yet to confirm the cause of the crash.
"There could be various causes – they are being analysed by specialists, experts, the Investigative Committee. Currently, the main versions do not include an act of terror," Sokolov said. He also added that although the search operations are on, some of the bodies could have been carried off by the current to Abkhazia, the Georgian separatist region.
A spokesperson for the Sochi-based search and rescue branch of the emergency ministry, Rimma Chernova, said that it was confirmed that the parts found underwater were of the crashed Russian plane. "The debris is at a depth of 27 metres one mile from shore," spokeswoman Chernova told AFP.
The Russian military also added that the divers had found two elements of the plane's control mechanism.
