Moscow (Brussels Morning Newspaper) – Putin apologizes to Aliyev for the Azerbaijan Airlines crash caused by Russian air defences mistakenly shooting down the plane.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on 28 Dec 2024 apologised to Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev for what Moscow called a “tragic incident” over Russia in which an Azerbaijan Airlines plane went down after Kremlin air defences were shot against Ukrainian drones. Several sources have already said that Russian air defences had mistakenly fired the airliner down.
Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer 190 from Baku to Grozny, Russia crash landed near Aktau, Kazakhstan 25 December 2024. The total loss of the incident was 38 people including two pilots and a flight attendant, survived 29.
Russian President Vladimir Putin called Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev and
“apologised for the tragic incident that happened in Russian airspace and once again voiced his deep and sincere condolences to the families of the victims and hoped for a speedy recovery to the wounded,”
Russia stated.
“At that time, Grozny, Mozdok and Vladikavkaz were being shot by Kyiv unmanned aerial vehicles, and Russian air defence systems repulsed these spells.”
The Kremlin expressed that “civilian and military specialists” were being interrogated.
From the Azerbaijan side, Aliyev had stated to Putin that the aircraft had been
“subjected to external physical and technical interference in Russian airspace, resulting in a total loss of power and redirection to the Kazakh city of Aktau”.
What past incidents echo the Azerbaijan Airlines crash?
On January 8, 2020, due to heightened military alertness emanating from growing tensions in that region, military forces in Iran shot down just a few minutes after it had taken off from the Tehran airport Ukrainian International Airlines Flight PS752; all passengers and crew on board numbering 176 lost their lives. A month after that incident, the government of Iran admitted that it made an error during its heightened military activity to have mistaken the jet plane.
Similarly, Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was shot down on July 17, 2014, when a Buk missile system manned by pro-Russian separatists over eastern Ukraine. In total, there were 298 people aboard the flight that originated from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.
