After the crash of an Azerbaijani passenger plane in Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev has directed a demand catalog to Russia.
“We have clearly formulated our demands to the Russian side” Aliyev said to the state news agency Azertag on Sunday. Russia must apologize to Azerbaijan and acknowledge its guilt. The responsible individuals must be punished and held accountable in a legal sense, and a compensation must be paid to the Azerbaijani state, as well as to the injured passengers and crew members.
“The first of these conditions was met yesterday” Aliyev said. “I hope the others will be accepted.” He added that the plane was likely “hit by mistake.” However, the fact is that the plane was damaged from the outside, over Russian territory.
Russian President Vladimir Putin had apologized to Aliyev on Saturday for the crash of the passenger plane, which killed 38 people. Moscow continues to link the crash to the Ukraine war. According to this, when the Azerbaijani plane was trying to land in Grozny, there were Ukrainian drone attacks on the city. On Sunday, there was another phone call between Putin and Aliyev, in which the crash was discussed again.
The plane, with flight number 8243, was on its way from Baku in Azerbaijan to Grozny in Russia. The passenger flight could not land in Grozny due to the strong fog and was initially diverted to Machatschkala in Russia and then to Aqtau in Kazakhstan, where it crashed a few minutes before the planned landing.