The Azerbaijani president said that Russia unintentionally shot down the ill-fated plane

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said on Sunday that Russia shot down the Azerbaijani Airlines plane that crashed this week, albeit unintentionally, and criticized Moscow for trying to “cover up” the issue for several days.

“We can say very clearly that Russia shot down the plane… We are not saying that it happened intentionally, but it happened,” he told Azerbaijani state television.

Aliyev said the plane that crashed on Wednesday in Kazakhstan was hit by fire from the ground over Russia and “made out of control with electronic warfare.” He accused Russia of trying to “cover up” the issue for several days, saying he was “disturbed and surprised” by the versions of events put forward by Russian officials.

Aliyev said: “Unfortunately, during the first three days, we did not hear anything from Russia except delusional stories.”

The accident led to the death of 38 out of 67 people on board. The Kremlin said air defense systems opened fire near Grozny – the regional capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya, where the plane attempted to land – to avert an attack by a Ukrainian drone.

Aliyev said that Azerbaijan made three demands to Russia regarding the incident.

“First, the Russian side must apologize to Azerbaijan. Second, it must admit its guilt. Third, punish the guilty ones and bring them to criminal liability and pay compensation to the Azerbaijani state, injured passengers and crew members,” he said.

Aliyev noted that the first request “has already been fulfilled” when Russian President Vladimir Putin apologized to him on Saturday. Putin described the incident as a “tragic accident” but stopped short of acknowledging Moscow’s responsibility.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian state media on Sunday that Putin spoke with Aliyev by phone again, but did not provide details about the conversation.

The Kremlin also said that a joint investigation between Russia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan had begun at the crash site near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan.

The plane was flying from the Azerbaijani capital, Baku, to Grozny in southern Russia when it headed towards Kazakhstan, hundreds of kilometers across the Caspian Sea from its intended destination, and crashed while trying to land.

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 Russia’s Civil Aviation Authority, said on Friday that while the plane was preparing to land in Grozny amid heavy fog, Ukrainian drones were targeting the city, prompting authorities to close the area to air traffic.

This is the second fatal civil aviation accident linked to combat 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.