This is a top of the line commuter plane replacement, built with help from Boeing. It would not be a 737 competitor.
It is fly by wire.
The request for, and granting, of an altitude clearance that would not clear the nearby mountains is puzzling.
http://avherald.com/h?article=44f464f7&opt=0
demonstration flight circling these mountains and flying between them does not sound like a very good idea. Pretty obvious if it was found on the mountain that either a wind shear of some sort or just pilot error/distraction caused them to fly into the 7000+ or 9000+ foot mountain when cleared to descend from 10000 to 6000...thoughts and prayers to families and friends.
What Putin enemy was on the plane?
Not at all. We have seen this sort of thing before in Russian Aviation. Remember the reason the airliner with the Polish president crashed, the Poles say the pilot got bad orders, the Russians say the pilot didn't correctly follow orders.
The question is who was on the plane? The last report I saw on this said the passengers were foreign nationals and eight Russians. Foreign nationals from where?