Baku – Azerbaijan’s president has accused Russia of accidentally shooting down a passenger plane and covering up the cause, sparking public anger in the white country against the Russian government over its handling of the incident.
“Russia tried to avoid responsibility, but it could not escape from the facts,” Azerbaijani state broadcaster ITV’s daily news program began on December 29th.
“Refusing to land after shooting down a plane has only one name, it’s a crime!” In the wake of the December 25 disaster that left 38 people dead and 29 injured, the pro-government online newspaper Yeni I wrote an opinion article on Musabato.
The harsh remarks are part of a growing wave of online discourse in Azerbaijan’s state and pro-government media and criticism of Russia, which typically avoids harsh comments against its allies and large neighbors.
It also reflects growing public anger at Russia for trying to avoid responsibility for the downing of the Azerbaijani plane.
Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev said in a December 29 television interview that the country had used the country’s oil resources to strengthen its autocratic rule, but Russia said the plane had “spent out of control” after it caught fire on the ground over Russia. I’m trying to cover up what happened.” Electronic warfare caused the plane to be blown off course from its destination in Grozny, Chechnya, before attempting an emergency landing and crashing in western Kazakhstan.
“I can say with complete certainty that the plane was shot down by Russia,” Aliyev told state television. “I’m not saying it was done intentionally, but it was done.”
Amid the backlash, Russian President Vladimir Putin on December 28 apologized to Aliyev for the “tragic incident” in Russian airspace, saying his country’s air defense forces had engaged a Ukrainian attack drone. .
Russia initially said the crash occurred after an Embraer 190 plane collided with a flock of birds. According to a Kremlin statement, Putin spoke with Aliyev but did not say that Russia had shot down the plane, only that a criminal case had been opened.
“Unfortunately, for the first three days, we didn’t hear anything from Russia except absurd versions,” Aliyev said in an interview.
Some Azerbaijani analysts said that without a full apology from Russia and an offer to pay compensation for the downing of the plane, relations between Baku and Moscow could be negatively affected.
“It is clear that the president of Azerbaijan is not satisfied with the telephone conversation (with President Putin),” Erkan Shahinoglu, director of the Atlas Research Center think tank in Baku, told RFE/RL Azerbaijan Service.
Shahinoglu said Russia needed to take clear steps to satisfy the Azerbaijani government and people, but was provoked by the Kremlin’s initial attempts to present an alternative explanation, and that Russia needed to take clear steps to satisfy Azerbaijan’s government and people, but was encouraged by the Kremlin’s initial attempts to present an alternative explanation and the Aviation experts said they categorically refused.
“If they had confessed right away, the situation would not have been so tense,” Shahinoglu said.
On December 30, the head of Russia’s Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, promised a “complete and objective investigation into the crash.” Kazakh authorities also sent flight recorders to Brazil, where the Embraer 190 was manufactured. There, Azerbaijani and international experts will extract and analyze the data.
Following a period of national mourning, Azerbaijan expressed its condolences to the victims of the crashed airliner and later held a state funeral for the plane’s crew.
Captain Igor Kushnyakin, co-pilot Alexander Karayaninov, and flight attendant Khokma Aliyeva were posthumously awarded the title of National Hero of Azerbaijan, one of Azerbaijan’s highest honors, by presidential decree.
