Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said on Sunday that the Azerbaijan Airlines plane that crashed this week was shot down by Russia, albeit unintentionally, and criticized Moscow for trying to “hush up” the issue for days.
“We can say with complete clarity that the plane was shot down by Russia…. We are not saying that it was done intentionally, but it was done,” he told Azerbaijani state television.
Aliyev said that the airliner, which crashed on Wednesday in Kazakhstan, was hit by fire from the ground over Russia and “rendered uncontrollable by electronic warfare.” He accused Russia of trying to “hush up” the issue for several days, saying he was “upset and surprised” by versions of events put forward by Russian officials.
“Unfortunately, for the first three days we heard nothing from Russia except delirious versions,” Aliyev said.
The crash killed 38 of 67 people on board. The Kremlin said that air defence systems were firing near Grozny — the regional capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya, where the plane attempted to land — to deflect a Ukrainian drone strike.
Aliyev said Azerbaijan made three demands to Russia in connection with the crash.
“First, the Russian side must apologize to Azerbaijan. Second, it must admit its guilt. Third, punish the guilty, bring them to criminal responsibility and pay compensation to the Azerbaijani state, the injured passengers and crew members,” he said.
Aliyev noted that the first demand was “already fulfilled” when Russian President Vladimir Putin apologized to him on Saturday. Putin called the crash a “tragic incident” but stopped short of acknowledging Moscow’s responsibility.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Russian state media on Sunday that Putin had spoken to Aliyev over the phone again, but he did not provide details of the conversation.
The Kremlin also said a joint investigation by Russia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan has begun at the crash site near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan.
The plane was flying from Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, to Grozny in southern Russia when it turned toward Kazakhstan, hundreds of kilometres across the Caspian Sea from its intended destination, and crashed while making an attempt to land.
As more evidence points to the possibility a missile brought down an Azerbaijan Airlines flight, some of the survivors are speaking out about the moments before the plane crashed in Kazakhstan.
Passengers and crew who survived the crash told Azerbaijani media that they heard loud noises on the aircraft as it was circling over Grozny.
Dmitry Yadrov, head of Russia’s civil aviation authority Rosaviatsia, said on Friday that as the plane was preparing to land in Grozny in deep fog, Ukrainian drones were targeting the city, prompting authorities to close the area to air traffic.
The crash is the second deadly civil aviation accident linked to fighting in Ukraine. Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was downed with a Russian surface-to-air missile, killing all 298 people aboard, as it flew over the area in eastern Ukraine controlled by Moscow-backed separatists in 2014.
Russia has denied responsibility, but a Dutch court in 2022 convicted two Russians and a pro-Russia Ukrainian man for their role in downing the plane with an air defence system brought into Ukraine from a Russian military base.
