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Aliyev and his wife during the funerals for the victims of the accident. Reuters
Azerbaijan's President Directly Accuses Russian Missile in Kazakhstan Plane Crash

Azerbaijan's President Directly Accuses Russian Missile in Kazakhstan Plane Crash

Aliyev believes the incident was unintentional but accuses Moscow of attempting to 'cover up the matter' and demands Putin punish those responsible and compensate the victims.

M. Pérez

Domingo, 29 de diciembre 2024, 16:15

Aliyev directly accuses Russian forces of firing upon the plane.

Vladimir Putin's ambiguous 'apologies' have been of no use. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev demanded on Sunday that Russia take responsibility for the plane crash that occurred on Christmas Day when the aircraft crashed while flying over Russian airspace towards the Chechen capital, apparently after being hit by an anti-aircraft missile. The incident, which is still under investigation, resulted in 38 fatalities. Another 29 passengers on the Azerbaijan Airlines flight from Baku to Grozny survived the crash.

'The facts are as follows: an Azerbaijani civilian plane was fired upon from outside while flying over Russian territory near the city of Grozny; it nearly lost control then and ultimately lost it due to electronic warfare systems, and at the same time, its tail was severely damaged by ground fire,' Aliyev stated in an interview on public television AZTV.

The forcefulness of his statements is surprising given that until now no country, institution, or aviation expert has been so blunt in pointing fingers, although they have expressed open suspicions. Among them, the United States and the United Kingdom have indicated that the holes in the fuselage and the statements of the survivors suggest the aircraft was targeted by a missile. Putin himself acknowledged on Saturday, during a phone conversation with his Azerbaijani counterpart, that anti-aircraft batteries were active to respond to a Ukrainian drone attack in Grozny. However, he did not verbalize any responsibility or that one of these defense systems mistook the Embraer 190 for a drone and fired upon it.

The statements of the leader of the former Soviet republic reveal the significant discontent among Azerbaijani authorities with the Kremlin's attitude and narrative. Aliyev has even rejected the investigation being conducted by the so-called Interstate Aviation Committee, as it is 'mainly composed of Russian officials, so our requests for objectivity could never have been fully satisfied.'

Moreover, the president considers that 'today we can openly say that Russia fired upon the plane,' although he admits it was 'not intentional,' and what his government expects is 'punishment for the guilty' and for Russia to pay 'compensation to the State of Azerbaijan and the injured passengers and crew.'

Moscow has so far put forward four theories about the causes of the air accident: fog, the collision of the plane with a flock of birds, the explosion of an oxygen cylinder inside the aircraft, and ultimately, a collision with a Ukrainian drone. Aliyev calls all these hypotheses 'nonsense,' despite the pilot possibly mistaking shrapnel impacts on the fuselage for bird strikes because 'no one would ever think that a friendly country of ours fired upon the aircraft from the ground.'

However, the leader believes that, because the aircraft did not catch fire after the forced landing, technicians have been able to confirm the existence of holes in the fuselage compatible with missile shrapnel. Also, the irregular flight path of the aircraft in its final moments in the air and the pilot's alarmed declaration that he had lost complete control of the controls suggests that the onboard instruments were disabled by the electronic interference devices of the Russian defenses. 'One of the things that saddened and surprised us,' he accuses, is that the Kremlin cited a possible internal gas explosion, 'making it clear they wanted to cover up the matter.'

The outraged reaction of the Azerbaijani leader comes twenty-four hours after Putin's equally surprising call, in which he apologized for the 'tragic incident' over 'Russian airspace.' The communication took place three days after the catastrophe. The plane, an Embraer 190 model belonging to Azerbaijan Airlines, was operating the route between Baku and Grozny.

After two hours of flight over the Caspian Sea, adverse weather conditions apparently forced the aircraft to divert to the airport of Makhachkala in Russian Dagestan, and then to the Kazakh city of Aktau, where it finally crashed, splitting in two. Flight 8243 carried 67 passengers on board. Only 29 survived, most of whom suffer serious injuries.

'At this very moment, the cities of Grozny, Mozdok, and Vladikavkaz were being attacked by Ukrainian combat drones, and the Russian air defense system repelled the attacks,' argued the Kremlin chief during the conversation. He said nothing about the possibility that a missile fired by these batteries downed the Embraer 190. He promised an 'objective and transparent' investigation in which, according to Moscow, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan were 'closely cooperating.'

Already on Saturday, Aliyev's presidential office had issued a rather dry statement about the conversation between the two leaders, in which the Azerbaijani had already presented his indications of a missile downing to Putin. Sunday's statements represent the most significant challenge to the Russian giant, with whom they had so far shown a neutral stance towards the invasion of Ukraine and collaboration in the commercial sphere.

The statements coincide with a massive tribute held on Sunday in honor of the pilots and passengers of the aircraft in Baku. Aliyev and his wife, Mehriban, presided over the ceremony in the so-called Alley of Honor, where the captain and co-pilot, Igor Kshnyakin and Alexander Kalyaninov, both Russians, as well as the flight attendant Hakuma Aliyeva, were praised for their 'courage and professionalism,' which saved nearly thirty lives. 'My father always said: when I take off, I am responsible not only for my life but also for the lives of all passengers and crew members.' With his last flight, he demonstrated what a true hero should be,' recalled the captain's daughter, Anastasia Kshnyakina.

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