Azerbaijan’s Anger at the Plane Crash Grows, Thinks with Russia

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on Monday rebuked Russia for trying to claim responsibility for last month’s downing of an Azerbaijani airliner, doubling down on a rare confrontation with the Kremlin, which has highlighted Russia’s loss of influence in most parts of the former Soviet Union.

Mr. Aliyev, who met with the relatives of the two surviving flight attendants and crew members who died in the accident, said that Russia’s efforts to “silence this incident” caused “surprise, regret and justified anger” in Azerbaijan.

Preliminary investigation December 25 accident According to him, “this tragedy could have been prevented” if there had been proper coordination of the Russian military and civilian authorities, which resulted in the death of 38 people. He repeated his claim, supported by footage from the scene and Western assessments, that the plane crashed after being shot down by a Russian air defense system.

“I can say with certainty that the representatives of the Russian Federation are responsible for the death of Azerbaijani citizens in this tragedy,” said Mr. Aliyev. “We demand justice, punishment of the guilty, full transparency and decent behavior.”

Mr. Aliyev deviated from the protocol and said those television comments in Russian, not in Azerbaijani; analysts evaluated this decision both as a nod to the Russian-speaking relatives of the dead pilots and as a sign that Mr. Aliyev wanted to be heard in Moscow.

while President Vladimir V. Putin apologized Addressing Mr. Aliyev for the “tragic incident in Russian airspace” on December 28, he refrained from taking Russia’s responsibility for it.

After the crash, pro-government voices in Azerbaijan led to rare and muted criticism of Russia, despite the close relationship between Mr. Aliyev and Mr. Putin, two increasingly authoritarian leaders. Common ground in the confrontation with the West.

Farid Shafiyev, chairman of the Baku government-funded International Relations Analysis Center, said in a telephone interview that Russia’s “imperial arrogance” is manifested in confusing the circumstances of the accident.

Touching upon Russia’s refusal to admit its guilt, Mr. Shafiyev said: “They still look down on all these former Soviet countries.”

Russia has been silent about the accident in recent days. There was no comment from the Kremlin on Monday, and Russian state media gave little coverage of Mr. Aliyev’s appeal.

Mr. Shafiyev said that Moscow’s muted response may reflect its confidence in its dominant position in the post-Soviet world. But he added that confidence may be misplaced, pointing to the stunning fall of the pro-Russian regime in Syria last month as evidence of how quickly fortunes can change.

“At the moment they may feel very comfortable that they are still some kind of great power, but that may change over time,” he said.

Russian control over the former Soviet Union continues to show signs of strain. Azerbaijan’s arch-enemy Armenia no longer sees Russia as a guarantor of its security He is looking for support from the West and Iran. In Central Asia, China dominates, as do the former Soviet republics He considers Russia weakened and distracted by the war in Ukraine.

And just last week, another rift appeared in Moldova’s pro-Russian separatist region of Transnistria. The suspension of gas from Russia to the region on January 1, the result of the war in Ukraine, raised questions about Russia’s ability to maintain a loyal outpost on the southeastern edge of Europe.

By comparison, Azerbaijan seemed to be a more positive story for Moscow. Mr Putin made a two-day state visit in August, complete with footage of him relaxing in T-shirts with Mr Aliyev. The head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service visited Azerbaijan in September and presented Azerbaijan as an ally against the West’s attempts to disrupt “internal political stability in our countries”.

But last month’s accident highlighted the limits of that cooperation and underscored Mr. Aliyev’s willingness to attack his country’s more powerful neighbor to the north.

wash with fossil fuel revenues and the autocratic Mr. Aliyev, 63, brimming with confidence after defeating Armenia in the protracted conflict in 2023, is using the fallout to create any impression of being dependent on Mr. Putin.

An Embraer 190 plane belonging to Azerbaijan Airlines with 67 people on board fell into a ball of black smoke and orange flames The southern Russian city of Grozny after failing to land at its destination in Kazakhstan on the Caspian Sea. According to the Kremlin statement, Mr. Putin told Mr. Aliyev three days later that Russian air defense forces were fighting Ukrainian drones in the region as the warplane approached.

Mr. Aliyev said on December 29 that this explanation and Mr. Putin’s limited apology it would not be enough. “Russia must admit its guilt and punish the guilty,” he said. In the televised meeting on Monday, Mr. Aliyev went further and declared that “there are very serious issues with criminal content here.”

Mr. Aliyev said that the airspace over Grozny was closed only after the plane was shot down.

“If there is a threat to the airspace of Russia, the captain of the plane should have been informed about it immediately,” said Mr. Aliyev.

Mr. Aliyev repeated his claim that the Moscow-based aviation agency, which normally investigates plane crashes in most countries of the former Soviet Union, including Azerbaijan, cannot be trusted to conduct a fair investigation – another scathing rebuke to Mr. Putin’s government.

Kazakhstan has agreed to send the plane’s black boxes to Brazil, where the aircraft manufacturer Embraer is based.

Kazakh President Kasim-Jomart Tokayev told a Kazakh newspaper in an interview published Friday that sending the black boxes to Brazil was the only way to “ensure a fair and impartial investigation.”

Kazakhstan is another former Soviet republic that has carefully distanced itself from Russia after invading Ukraine. Azerbaijani media praised Kazakhstan for demonstrating “impartiality and objectivity” in investigating the accident rather than helping Russia cover it up.

Mr. Aliyev said that the black boxes could explain the reason why the plane made an emergency landing in Kazakhstan after crossing the Caspian Sea instead of making an emergency landing at a closer airport in Russia.

A senior Russian aviation official said that the pilot of the plane chose to land in Kazakhstan. On December 29, Mr. Aliyev theorized that Russian air traffic controllers may have diverted the plane in anticipation that it would crash into the Caspian Sea, in which case “efforts to hush up the matter” would have been “successful.”

Mr. Aliyev said at that time that Azerbaijan will expect Russia to pay compensation to the victims. But in a telephone interview on Monday, the brother of one of the stewardesses on the plane, Joshgun Nasibli, said he was interested in something else.

“Why do I need compensation from Russia? I don’t need it,” said Mr. Nasibli’s sister Hokuma Aliyeva, who died in the accident. “I need an apology from the public, even though it won’t bring our sister back.”

Milana Mazaeva, Oleg Matsnev and Nataliya Vasilyeva prepared a report.