Russian President Vladimir Putin apologized on Saturday to his Azerbaijani counterpart for what he described as a “tragic accident” following the crash of an Azerbaijani passenger plane in Kazakhstan, killing 38 people, but he stopped short of acknowledging Moscow’s responsibility.
Putin’s apology came as allegations increased that Russian air defenses shot down the plane while it was trying to repel a Ukrainian drone air strike near Grozny, the regional capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya.
An official Kremlin statement issued on Saturday said that air defense systems opened fire near Grozny airport as the plane “repeatedly” tried to land there on Wednesday. It was not explicitly stated that one of them hit the plane.
The statement said that Putin apologized to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev “for the tragic incident occurring in Russian airspace.”
The statement said that Russia had launched a criminal investigation into the incident, and that Azerbaijani state prosecutors had arrived in Grozny to participate. The Kremlin also said that “relevant services” from Russia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan are conducting a joint investigation at the plane crash site near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan.
The plane was on its way from the Azerbaijani capital, Baku, to Grozny when it headed towards Kazakhstan, hundreds of kilometers across the Caspian Sea from its intended destination, and it crashed while trying to land. There were 29 survivors.
According to a readout of the call provided to Aliyev’s press office, the Azerbaijani president told Putin that the plane had been subjected to “foreign material and technical interference,” although he stopped short of blaming Russian air defenses.
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Aliyev noted that the plane had multiple holes in its fuselage and that passengers were injured “due to foreign particles entering the cabin in the middle of the flight.”
He said that a team of international experts had begun investigating the incident at the initiative of Azerbaijan, but did not provide details. Earlier this week, the Azerbaijani Prosecutor General’s Office confirmed that investigators from Azerbaijan were working in Grozny.
A US official and an Azerbaijani minister on Friday made separate statements blaming the incident on a foreign weapon, echoing those made by aviation experts who blamed the incident on Russian air defense systems that responded to a Ukrainian attack.
Passengers and crew members who survived the accident told Azerbaijani media that they heard loud noises on board the plane as it was flying over Grozny.
Dmitry Yadrov, head of the Russian Civil Aviation Authority “Rozavyatsia”, said on Friday that while the plane was preparing to land in Grozny amid heavy fog, Ukrainian drones were targeting the city, prompting the authorities to close the area to air traffic.
Yadrov said that after the captain made two failed attempts to land, he was offered other airports but decided to fly to Aktau.
Earlier in the week, Rosaviatsia pointed to unspecified early evidence showing that a bird strike led to an emergency on board the ship.
In the days following the incident, Azerbaijan Airlines blamed “physical and technical interference” and announced the suspension of flights to several Russian airports. He did not say where the interference came from or provide any other details.
If it is proven that the plane crashed after being hit by Russian fire, it would be the second fatal civil aviation accident linked to the fighting 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 the region of eastern Ukraine controlled by Moscow-backed separatists in 2014.
Russia denied responsibility, but in 2022 a Dutch court convicted two Russians and a pro-Russian Ukrainian man for their role in shooting down the plane with an air defense system brought to Ukraine from a Russian military base.
After suspending flights from Baku to Grozny and nearby Makhachkala on Wednesday, Azerbaijan Airlines announced on Friday that it would also stop services to eight other Russian cities.
Several other airlines have made similar announcements since the accident. Kazakh Air said on Friday it would stop flying from Astana to the Russian city of Yekaterinburg in the Ural Mountains for a month.
Turkmen Airlines, the Central Asian country’s main airline, on Saturday suspended flights to Moscow for at least a month, citing safety concerns. Earlier this week, Israeli airline El Al suspended its services from Tel Aviv to the Russian capital, citing “developments in Russian airspace.”
& Edition 2024 The Canadian Press
