Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on Sunday said that the passenger plane that crashed in Kazakhstan, which saw 38 people dead was damaged due to a shooting from the ground in Russia, reports Azertac. Aliyev said that Azerbaijan has officially communicated its demands to Moscow. In an interview with Azerbaijan Television, Aliyev said, “The fact that the fuselage is riddled with holes indicates that the theory of the plane hitting a flock of birds, which was brought up by someone, is completely removed from the agenda”
Russia covering up the issue, must apologise: Aliyev
Accusing Russia of trying to cover up the issue, the Azerbaijani President said, “Another regrettable and surprising moment for us was that official Russian agencies put forward theories about the explosion of some gas cylinder on board the plane. In other words, this clearly showed that the Russian side wanted to cover up the issue, which, of course, is unbecoming of anyone.”
The Azerbaijan State News Agency quotes Aliyev saying that the Russian side must apologize to Azerbaijan and punish those who are responsible, further adding that compensation must be paid to the Azerbaijani state, as well as to the injured passengers and crew members.
Putin calls it ‘tragic incident’
Earlier on Saturday, Russian President Vladimir Putin apologised to his Azerbaijani counterpart for what he called a “tragic incident” following the crash of an Azerbaijani airliner in Kazakhstan that killed 38 people, but stopped short of acknowledging that Moscow was responsible.
Putin’s apology came as allegations mounted that the plane had been shot down by Russian air defences attempting to deflect a Ukrainian drone strike near Grozny, the regional capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya.
An official Kremlin statement issued on Saturday said that air defence systems were firing near Grozny airport as the airliner “repeatedly” attempted to land there on Wednesday.
It did not explicitly say one of these hit the plane.
The statement said Putin apologised to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev “for the fact that the tragic incident occurred in Russian airspace”.
Azerbaijan Airlines’ Embraer 190 was flying from Azerbaijan’s capital of Baku to the Russian city of Grozny in the North Caucasus on Wednesday when it was diverted for reasons still unclear and crashed while making an attempt to land in Aktau in Kazakhstan after flying east across the Caspian Sea. The crash killed 38 people and left all 29 survivors injured.
(With agency inputs)
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