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 “cover up” the matter for days.
“We can say with complete clarity that the plane was shot down by Russia… We are not saying it was intentional, but it happened,” he told Azerbaijan state television.
Aliyev said the plane that crashed in Kazakhstan on Wednesday was struck from the ground over Russia and “made uncontrollable by electronic warfare.” He accused Russia of trying to “cover up” the issue for several days and said he was “angry and surprised” by the versions of events put forward by Russian officials.
“Unfortunately, in the first three days we heard nothing except insane versions from Russia,” Aliyev said.
The crash killed 38 of the 67 people on board. The Kremlin said air defense systems fired near Grozny – the regional capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya, where the plane was trying to land – to repel a Ukrainian drone attack.
Aliyev said Azerbaijan had made three demands to Russia in connection with the crash.
“First, the Russian side must apologize to Azerbaijan. Second, she must admit her guilt. Third, it must punish the guilty, hold them criminally responsible and pay compensation to the Azerbaijani state and the injured passengers and crew members,” he said.
Aliyev noted that the first demand had “already been met” when Russian President Vladimir Putin apologized to him on Saturday. Putin called the crash a “tragic incident” but did not admit Moscow’s responsibility.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian state media on Sunday that Putin had spoken to Aliyev by phone again, but he did not provide details of the conversation.
The Kremlin also said a joint investigation by Russia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan had 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, hundreds of kilometers over the Caspian Sea, it veered toward Kazakhstan from its intended destination and crashed while attempting to land.
As more evidence points to the possibility that a missile brought down an Azerbaijan Airlines plane, some survivors are speaking out about the moments before the plane crashed in Kazakhstan.
Passengers and crew members who survived the crash told Azerbaijani media they heard loud noises inside the plane as it circled over Grozny.
Dmitry Yadrov, head of Russia’s civil aviation agency Rosaviatsia, said on Friday that Ukrainian drones targeted the city as the plane prepared to land in Grozny in thick fog, prompting authorities to close the area to air traffic.
The crash is the second fatal civil aviation accident linked to fighting in Ukraine. Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down by a Russian surface-to-air missile in 2014, killing all 298 people on board, as it flew over territory in eastern Ukraine controlled by Moscow-backed separatists.
Russia denied responsibility, but a Dutch court in 2022 convicted two Russians and a pro-Russian Ukrainian for their roles in shooting down the plane carrying an air defense system that had been brought to Ukraine from a Russian military base.
