Russia’s closest ally, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, averred that Russia was “guilty ” and accused it of “concealing ” the facts surrounding the accident. The Kremlin on Thursday refused to say Russian forces accidentally shot at an Azerbaijani plane that crashed last month, despite Baku repeatedly urging it to accept responsibility for the fatal disaster.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has said the Azerbaijani Airlines passenger jet, which crashed in Kazakhstan on December 25, killing 38 people, was shot at “from the ground” over the Russian city of Grozny where it had been due to land.
Russia has said its air defenses were working at the time, repelling Ukrainian drones, but has stopped short of saying it shot at the plane. This week, Aliyev, a close ally of Moscow, repeated that “guilt” lay with Russia and accused it of “concealment” of the real causes.
“We are interested in an objective and impartial investigation to establish the causes of this catastrophe,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday. We are waiting for the commission’s results,” he added, saying Russian “specialists are giving their full cooperation.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin called Aliyev twice since the disaster. The Kremlin said Putin had apologized for the incident over Russian airspace, but the phone call accounts do not say Putin accepted responsibility.
Aliyev has expressed anger over Moscow’s handling of the crash. He had issued fierce criticism and demanded an apology earlier this week, calling on Moscow to punish those responsible for the “criminal” shooting of the plane.
