Aliyev threatens Russia with lawsuit over AZAL plane crash

Azerbaijan is preparing documents to file claims in international courts regarding the crash of the AZAL plane. Russia has not admitted guilt and has not punished those responsible for the deaths, the President of Azerbaijan said.

As "Caucasian Knot" wrote, on December 25, 2024, an Azerbaijan Airlines plane flying from Baku to Grozny crashed at the airport in the Kazakh city of Aktau. There were 62 passengers and five crew members on board, 38 people died. The airline called the cause of the crash "external physical and technical interference". On February 4, the Ministry of Transport of Kazakhstan published a preliminary report on the disaster. According to the document, the plane was damaged even before the crash, some of it has a regular rectangular shape, and "unknown objects" were found inside. The Azerbaijani Ministry of Transport stated that the plane was damaged in Russian airspace as a result of external impact, and Operation Carpet was announced at Grozny airport after the plane was damaged. On March 4, it became known that AlfaStrakhovanie paid compensation under the air insurance for the Baku-Grozny plane crash and began to pay for damages to passengers.

Azerbaijan has not received any response from Russian officials regarding the crash of the Embraer 190 passenger plane, owned by CJSC Azerbaijan Airlines (AZAL), near the Kazakh city of Aktau, said Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev at a meeting with participants of the III Shusha Global Media Forum.

"Unfortunately, we have not received any response from Russian officials on this matter, although seven months have already passed. Everything is clear to us. We know what happened and we can prove it. And we know that Russian officials also know that happened. And here the question arises - why don't they just do what any neighbor would do. Our requests and demands are absolutely natural: to admit this catastrophe as guilt, to punish those who shot down our plane, to pay compensation to the families of the victims, the injured and AZAL airline - for the loss of the plane," Report quoted him as saying.

The idea that it was a Ukrainian drone that allegedly hit the plane is absolutely ridiculous, Aliyev emphasized. "There were two attacks on the plane. So imagine: a Ukrainian drone arrives, targets an Azerbaijani plane, hits it, crashes, and then attacks again. This is a story for kindergarten. We know what happened. Moreover, Russian airspace was not closed - it was closed a few minutes after the plane was hit. And this is also the responsibility of those who carried out this "Carpet" operation, as we call it, which closed the skies. All this is clear as day. But seven months have passed, and we have no answer. Our Prosecutor General regularly sends letters to the head of the Investigative Committee of Russia. But all the letters receive the same answer - the investigation is ongoing. We will wait for it to be completed, but I believe that such behavior is counterproductive," the publication says.

Aliyev noted that Azerbaijan will not forget about what happened. "We are currently preparing, and we have already informed the Russian side that we are preparing a dossier for submission to international courts on this matter. We understand that this may take time. In the case of Boeing of the Malaysian airline, it took more than ten years. We are ready to wait ten years, but justice must prevail. And, unfortunately, the situation, which is now in limbo, does not contribute to the development of bilateral relations between Russia and Azerbaijan," his words are quoted in the publication.

Recall that on December 28, 2024, Vladimir Putin called Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and apologized "in connection with with the fact that the tragic incident" with the plane "occurred in Russian airspace." After this, on December 29, Aliyev publicly demanded that Russia admit guilt in the plane crash, punish those responsible, and pay compensation. That same day, Aliyev and Putin spoke again by phone and discussed the investigation into the causes of the disaster. On January 6, Ilham Aliyev criticized the Russian authorities for refusing to admit guilt in the plane crash and demanded that those responsible for the plane crash be punished.

Materials about the deterioration of relations between the two states have been collected by the "Caucasian Knot" on the thematic page "Collapse of Relations between Baku and Moscow".

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