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Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev has called on Russia to “admit its guilt” in the crash of one of its national carrier’s passenger planes on Christmas Day, demanding Moscow compensate the families of the 38 people killed.
The Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer 190 plane was en route from Baku to the southern Russian city of Grozny when it began to run into trouble on Wednesday and diverted to Aktau airport in Kazakhstan, where it crash-landed.
Aliyev said Moscow must not “hush up” the reasons for the crash, which 29 people survived.
Speaking on television on Sunday, Aliyev said the aircraft was damaged “as a result of shelling from the ground”.
Some of the survivors have reported to investigators that they heard explosions when the plane was near its destination of Grozny, capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya.
Russian air defences were being deployed over Grozny at the time, repelling a Ukrainian drone attack, the Kremlin has acknowledged. Videos from inside the plane as it continued its flight, later shared on social media, showed possible shrapnel damage as well as injured passengers.
The plane’s controls may also have been damaged by Russian “electronic warfare” in the area, Aliyev said, contributing to the steering problems it appeared to suffer as it crash-landed near Aktau airport.
In a phone call to his Azerbaijani counterpart on Saturday, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin admitted that air defences were working in the same area as the plane was flying, but did not directly connect the two events and apologised only for the fact that the incident occurred “in Russian airspace”.
Aliyev on Sunday said this was not sufficient. “First, the Russian side must apologise to Azerbaijan. Second, it must admit its guilt,” he said.
“Third, those responsible must be punished, brought to criminal responsibility, and the Azerbaijani state, the affected passengers and crew members must be paid compensation,” the president said, adding that the conditions were conveyed to Moscow on Friday.
He said the investigation into the incident continued. To deny or attempt to disguise the fact that an explosion occurred and affected the plane, he said, was “absurd and stupid”.
On Sunday afternoon, the Kremlin issued a statement saying that Putin had made a second phone call to Aliyev about the Azerbaijan Airlines crash.
Of the passengers onboard the flight, 42 were citizens of Azerbaijan. There were also 16 Russians, six Kazakhstan nationals, and three people from Kyrgyzstan.
The bodies of two Russian nationals killed were returned to their home region of Chechnya on Sunday, the Tass state news agency reported.
Mourning ceremonies remembering the victims have been held in Azerbaijan, with the president also awarding three members of the plane’s crew posthumously with the title of “National Hero”, Azerbaijan’s state news agency reported.
