The authorities in the Eastern bloc seem far too eager to give an immediate explanation as to what the cause of the accident was
Partially true. Notice that Russian media has a very 'flexible' approach to how they handle news, something that becomes even easier to mangle in the translation. However, as one of the duplicate reportings of the accident moderated to reasonable reporting, I posted here my translation of an ITAR-TASS report. It quoted a senior Russian government official from the Emergency Situations Ministry who was very cautious in only reporting what was known (amounting to time of first distress signal, time of loss, souls on board and location). If a (provincial?) official wishes to speculate I would say it should be treated with the same caution as a UK police chief pre-empting the AAIB.
Today's edition of the Moscow Times has a photo claimed to be the flight taking off from Anapa. Very sobering if true.
With regard to lightning, if it helps the analysis here the sferics data indicates a high degree of electrical activity in the region at the time of the accident.