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RUSSIA IS DANGEROUS
Azerbaijan demands Russia admit guilt for downing plane, pay compensation
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev blasted Russia for putting forward “absurd”
theories initially and said Moscow must compensate victims’ families.
RUSSIA IS DANGEROUS
Azerbaijan demands Russia admit guilt for downing plane, pay compensation
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev blasted Russia for putting forward “absurd”
theories initially and said Moscow must compensate victims’ families.
Yana Kshnyakina, widow of pilot Igor Kshnyakin, mourns at her husband's coffin during a funeral Sunday in Baku, Azerbaijan, for crew members of the passenger plane that went down in Kazakhstan. (AP)
Original article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/12/29/azerbaijan-plane-crash-russia/
Peter Burgess COMMENTARY
Peter Burgess
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev blasted Russia for putting forward “absurd” theories initially and said Moscow must compensate victims’ families.
December 29, 2024 at 5:27 p.m. EST
Written by Mary Ilyushina ... Mary Ilyushina, a reporter on the Foreign Desk of The Washington Post, covers Russia and the region. She began her career in independent Russian media before joining CNN’s Moscow bureau as a field producer in 2017. She has been with The Post since 2021. She speaks Russian, English, Ukrainian and Arabic.follow on X@maryilyushina Azerbaijan’s president on Sunday demanded that Russia admit responsibility for the incident that led to the Christmas Day crash of a passenger plane that killed 38 people and pay compensation to the government and affected families.
President Ilham Aliyev said Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8243, which departed from Baku on Wednesday morning with 67 passengers and crew members bound for Grozny in Russia, “suffered external damage” in Russian airspace and was rendered uncontrollable by electronic warfare. The tail of the Embraer 190, he said in televised remarks, was seriously damaged “as a result of shelling from the ground.”
“First, the Russian side must apologize to Azerbaijan,” he said. “Second, it must admit its guilt. Third, those responsible must be punished, brought to criminal responsibility, and the Azerbaijani state, the affected passengers and crew members must be paid compensation.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin apologized to Aliyev on Saturday for the “tragic incident” near Grozny that has soured relations between the former Soviet states. Putin told Aliyev the area had been attacked by Ukrainian drones that activated Russian air defenses, the Kremlin said in a summary of their phone call, but it did not take responsibility for downing the aircraft.
The flight path, published by tracking service Flightradar24, showed the aircraft had been “exposed to GPS jamming and spoofing near Grozny.” Radar jamming is frequently employed as a defensive measure against drones.
The plane was diverted from Grozny midflight and crashed near Aktau in southwestern Kazakhstan, about 270 miles across the Caspian Sea.
Russian officials initially speculated that the plane hit a flock of birds, blamed poor weather in Grozny and suggested that an oxygen tank exploded on board.
Then Kazakh officials released imagery showing holes in the plane’s tail, and survivors posted videos showing that shrapnel had pierced the fuselage and injured several people.
Independent aviation analysts dismissed the bird theory as implausible. They said the damage was more consistent with an impact from a small surface-to-air missile such as the Pantsir system that Russia uses to repel Ukrainian drone attacks.
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters Friday that Washington had seen “early indications that would certainly point to the possibility that this jet was brought down by Russian air defense systems.” He said the evidence went beyond the images of the damaged aircraft but did not provide details. The United States has offered to assist in the investigation, which is being led by Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan.
Aliyev said Sunday he was “upset and surprised” that Russian officials put forward specious causes instead of promptly taking responsibility.
“It openly showed that the Russian side wants to hush up the issue, and this, of course, reflects no honor on anyone,” he said.
Aliyev stressed that it was evident the plane had not been shot down intentionally. But he said Russia should have admitted guilt and apologized to “the friendly state” of Azerbaijan.
“Unfortunately, for the first three days, we heard nothing from Russia except absurd versions,” Aliyev said, according to government news agency Azertac.
Aliyev praised the two pilots for saving the lives of 29 passengers and crew. Upon hitting the ground, the aircraft broke into two large pieces. The nose burst into flames, but the tail remained relatively intact. Pilots Igor Kshnyakin, the flight captain, and Aleksandr Kalyaninov, the first officer, were killed.
Some opposition politicians had urged Aliyev to “be more principled” in demanding an apology from Moscow.
Shortly after Aliyev’s statement Sunday, Putin called his Azerbaijani counterpart for the second time this weekend, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. He did not provide details.
If the plane was brought down by Russia, it would be the second such incident linked to the country’s war in Ukraine. In 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down by a surface-to-air missile over eastern Ukraine. All 298 passengers and crew members aboard were killed.
By Mary Ilyushina ... Mary Ilyushina, a reporter on the Foreign Desk of The Washington Post, covers Russia and the region. She began her career in independent Russian media before joining CNN’s Moscow bureau as a field producer in 2017. She has been with The Post since 2021. She speaks Russian, English, Ukrainian and Arabic.follow on X@maryilyushina