13:46, 21 July 2025

Kremlin responds to Aliyev's threats of lawsuits over AZAL plane crash

Russia will await the official results of the investigation into the crash of the AZAL plane, Dmitry Peskov said. According to him, Moscow hopes for an improvement in Russian-Azerbaijani relations.

As "Kavkazsky Uzel" wrote, Azerbaijan is preparing documents to file claims in international courts regarding the crash of the AZAL plane, since Russia has not admitted guilt and has not punished those responsible for the deaths, said Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.

On December 25, 2024, an Azerbaijan Airlines plane flying from Baku to Grozny crashed at the airport in the Kazakh city of Aktau, killing 38 people. The airline called the cause of the crash "external physical and technical intervention." On February 4, the Ministry of Transport of Kazakhstan published a preliminary report on the disaster. According to the document, the plane was damaged before the crash, some of which are rectangular in 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. On March 4, it became known that AlfaStrakhovanie paid compensation under the aviation insurance for the Baku-Grozny plane crash and began to pay for damages to passengers.

If Azerbaijan decides to file a lawsuit against Russia in connection with the crash of the AZAL airline plane in Kazakhstan, this will be its right, said the press secretary of the Russian president Dmitry Peskov.

"You know that investigative actions and proceedings are underway. If Azerbaijan makes such a decision, then this is the right of Azerbaijan. We will await the official verdict of all investigations," RBC quotes Peskov as saying.

Peskov noted that a difficult period has now begun in Russian-Azerbaijani relations. "Sometimes it happens that difficult periods occur in relations between two countries. Now is one of such periods. We hope that this period will pass, we believe that, indeed, cooperation between the two countries brings mutual benefit," he said.

The spiral of deterioration in relations between the two countries was the ethnic raids in Russia and the retaliatory detentions of Russians in Azerbaijan. Baku accuses the Russian authorities of extrajudicial reprisals against Azerbaijanis, and footage of the brutal detention of Russians in Baku looks like a demonstrative response to Moscow's actions, according to the "Caucasian Knot" report "Crisis in Relations between Azerbaijan and Russia".

It is important for the Russian side that the Russian people are respected in Azerbaijan, Peskov emphasized. There is also a very large Azerbaijani diaspora in Russia, and almost all of its representatives are "law-abiding citizens who enjoy well-deserved respect here." "Those citizens who violate the laws are prosecuted by law," he said.

Recall that on December 28, 2024, Vladimir Putin called Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and apologized "due to 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. On the same day, Aliyev and Putin spoke again on the 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 ties between Baku and Moscow".

Translated automatically via Google translate from https://www.kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/413212