Im wondering why they stopped in Sochi?
I looked up the flight plan yesterday (forgot to copy will check tomorrow)its intended routing was in fact NOT a southerly route.
It was due to route East to avoid Georgian FIR-Azerbaijan FIR before heading south into Iran FIR then west into Iraq FIR finaly into Syrian FIR.
It was efectively due to fly east to route joining from the southerly position of the earlier plotted FR24 example.
https://www.flightradar24.com/data/a...-85041#bef9574
Another TU-154 followed the sameroute dep URSS at 1500ish UTC.
RA-85072 was due to depart at 2310UTC but did not depart till after 0220UTC