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Russian president Vladimir Putin on Saturday, his Azerbaijani counterpart apologized for what he called a “tragic incident” after the crash of an Azerbaijani airliner in Kazakhstan that killed 38 people, but stopped short of acknowledging that Moscow was responsible.
Putin’s apology came amid growing allegations that the plane had been shot down by Russian air defenses trying to deflect a Ukrainian drone attack near Grozny, the regional capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya.
An official Kremlin statement issued on Saturday said air defense systems fired near Grozny airport as the plane “repeatedly” tried to land there on Wednesday. It did not explicitly say that any of these hit the plane.
The statement said Putin apologized to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev “for the fact that the tragic incident occurred in Russian airspace.”
The lecture said that Russia has launched a criminal investigation into the incident, and Azerbaijani prosecutors have arrived in Grozny to join. The Kremlin also said that “relevant services” from Russia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan are jointly investigating the crash site near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan.
The plane was flying from Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, to Grozny as it turned towards Kazakhstan, hundreds of kilometers across the Caspian Sea from its intended destination, and crashed while attempting to land. There were 29 survivors.
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According to a reading of the call provided by Aliyev’s press office, the Azerbaijani president told Putin that the plane was subject to “external physical and technical interference,” although he also stopped short of blaming Russian air defenses.
Aliyev noted that the plane had multiple holes in the fuselage and that the occupants suffered injuries “due to foreign particles penetrating the cabin mid-flight.”
On Friday, a US official and an Azerbaijani minister issued separate statements blaming the crash on an external weapon, in line with those made by aviation experts who blamed the crash on Russian air defense systems responding to a Ukrainian attack.
Passengers and crew who survived the crash told Azerbaijani media that they heard loud noises on the plane as it passed over Grozny.
Dmitry Yadrov, 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, prompting authorities to close the area to air traffic.
Yadrov said that after the captain made two unsuccessful attempts to land, he was offered other airports, but decided to fly to Aktau.
Earlier in the week, Rosaviatsia had cited unspecified early evidence as showing that a bird strike led to an emergency on board.
In the days after the accident, Azerbaijan Airlines blamed “physical and technical interference” and announced the suspension of flights to several Russian airports. It did not say where the interference came from or provide further details.
& copy 2024 The Canadian Press
