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 “dismissed” the case for days.
“We can say with complete clarity that the plane was shot down by Russia… We are not saying it was done on purpose, but it was done,” he told Azerbaijani state television.
Aliyev said the plane, which crashed Wednesday in Kazakhstan, was hit by ground fire over Russia and “made uncontrollable by electronic warfare.” He accused Russia of trying to “smother” the case for several days, saying he was “confused and surprised” by versions of events put forward by Russian officials.
“Unfortunately, for the first three days we heard nothing from Russia but delirious drafts,” said Aliyev.
The accident killed 38 of 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 attempted to land – to avoid a Ukrainian drone strike.
Aliyev said that Azerbaijan made three requests to Russia in connection with the accident.
“First, the Russian side must apologize to Azerbaijan. Second, it must admit its guilt. Third, punish the guilty, bring them to criminal responsibility and pay compensation to the Azerbaijani state, the injured passengers and crew members,” he said.
Aliyev noted that the first request was “already fulfilled” when Russian President Vladimir Putin apologized to him on Saturday. Putin called the accident a “tragic event” but stopped short of acknowledging Moscow's responsibility.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian state media on Sunday that Putin had spoken with Aliyev by phone again, but did not provide details of the conversation.
The Kremlin also said that a joint investigation by Russia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan has 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 it turned into Kazakhstan, hundreds of kilometers across the Caspian Sea from its intended destination, and crashed while trying to land.
As more evidence suggests that a missile may have brought down the Azerbaijan Airlines flight, some survivors are talking about the moments before the plane went down in Kazakhstan.
Passengers and crew who survived the crash told Azerbaijani media that they heard loud noises on the plane as it circled over Grozny.
Dmitry Yadrov, the head of Russia's civil aviation authority Rosaviatsia, said on Friday that as the plane was preparing to land in Grozny in deep fog, Ukrainian drones targeted the city, forcing authorities to close the area to air traffic.
The crash is the second fatal combat-related civil aviation accident in Ukraine. Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down by a Russian surface-to-air missile, killing all 298 people on board, while flying over rebel-held territory in eastern Ukraine. Moscow-backed secession in 2014.
Russia has denied responsibility, but a Dutch court in 2022 convicted two Russians and a pro-Russian Ukrainian for their part in the downing of the plane with an air defense system taken from – into Ukraine from the Russian military base.
