Azerbaijan’s president has said the Azerbaijani airliner that crashed in Kazakhstan last week was shot down by Russia, albeit unintentionally.
Ilham Aliyev told Azerbaijani state television on Sunday that the aircraft was hit by fire from the ground over Russia and rendered uncontrollable by electronic warfare.
He said the Azerbaijan Airlines’ Embraer 190 jet was not shot down deliberately, but accused Russia of trying to “hush up” the issue for several days.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev with Russian President Vladimir Putin at a meeting in Moscow in April (Gavriil Grigorov/Sputnik/Kremlin Pool/AP)
The crash near Aktau airport on Wednesday December 25 killed 38 of the 67 people on board.
The Kremlin said air defence systems were firing near Grozny, the regional capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya, where the plane attempted to land, to deflect a Ukrainian drone strike.
Russian President Vladimir Putin apologized to Mr Aliyev on Saturday for what he called a “tragic incident” but stopped short of acknowledging Moscow’s responsibility.