<\/p>\n
For the first time, Russian President Vladimir Putin has directly acknowledged Russia\u2019s responsibility for the crash<\/a> of\u00a0an\u00a0Azerbaijan Airlines (AZAL) passenger jet in\u00a0December 2024. The Embraer E190, flying from Baku to\u00a0Grozny, went down near Aktau after being rerouted over the Caspian Sea into Kazakhstan during a\u00a0Ukrainian drone attack on\u00a0Russia\u2019s North Caucasus regions. Thirty-eight people were killed and 29 survived. Azerbaijan has maintained<\/a> that the plane was shot down by\u00a0a\u00a0Russian air defense missile. Moscow, meanwhile, has long denied any responsibility, sparking a\u00a0diplomatic scandal between the two countries that has gone on\u00a0for the better part of\u00a0a\u00a0year. On\u00a0October 9, Putin met with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev for the first time in\u00a0a\u00a0year. Here\u2019s what he\u00a0said about the causes of\u00a0the Azerbaijan Airlines crash, according to\u00a0the Kremlin\u2019s official transcript.<\/p>\n I\u2019d like to\u00a0begin our meeting with the most sensitive subject: the aviation tragedy that occurred in\u00a0our skies. Even back then, during our first phone conversation, I\u00a0not only apologized for the fact that the tragedy took place in\u00a0Russian airspace, but also expressed my\u00a0deepest condolences to\u00a0the victims\u2019 families. I\u2019d like to\u00a0repeat and reaffirm all of\u00a0that, and say that, as\u00a0agreed, we\u00a0are providing every possible form of\u00a0assistance to\u00a0the investigation.<\/p>\n The investigation is\u00a0coming to\u00a0a\u00a0close, and now we\u00a0can talk about the causes of\u00a0this tragedy, this disaster. It\u00a0was the result of\u00a0several factors.<\/p>\n The first is\u00a0that a\u00a0Ukrainian drone was in\u00a0the air at\u00a0the time. We\u00a0were tracking three such drones, which crossed the Russian Federation\u2019s border on\u00a0the day of\u00a0the tragedy.<\/p>\n The second cause was technical failures in\u00a0Russia\u2019s air defense system. The two missiles that were launched did not hit the plane directly \u2014\u00a0if\u00a0they had, it\u00a0would have crashed immediately \u2014\u00a0but exploded, possibly through self-destruction, several meters away, roughly 10 meters [32 feet]. As\u00a0a\u00a0result, the damage was caused not mainly by\u00a0the warheads\u2019 fragments, but more likely by\u00a0debris from the missiles themselves. That\u2019s why the pilot thought he\u00a0had collided with a\u00a0flock of\u00a0birds,\u00a0which he\u00a0reported to\u00a0Russian air traffic controllers,\u00a0and this was recorded in\u00a0the so-called black boxes. He\u00a0was also advised \u2014 and this too can be\u00a0clearly heard in\u00a0the recordings \u2014 to\u00a0make an\u00a0emergency landing in\u00a0Makhachkala. However, he\u00a0decided to\u00a0return to\u00a0his home base, and then to\u00a0Kazakhstan. Nevertheless, the fact remains.<\/p>\n Of\u00a0course, everything that must be\u00a0done in\u00a0such tragic cases will be\u00a0done by\u00a0the Russian side \u2014\u00a0both in\u00a0terms of\u00a0compensation and in\u00a0providing a\u00a0legal assessment of\u00a0the actions of\u00a0all responsible officials.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the first time, Russian President Vladimir Putin has directly acknowledged Russia\u2019s responsibility for the crash of\u00a0an\u00a0Azerbaijan Airlines…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":486747,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7655],"tags":[332,7888,7883,7886,7875,7868,7880,7870,7881,7887,7876,7864,7871,7865,7873,7874,7866,7869,7867,7885,7879,7872,7884,7882,7878,7877],"class_list":{"0":"post-486746","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-russia","8":"tag-russia","9":"tag-7888","10":"tag-7883","11":"tag-7886","12":"tag-7875","13":"tag-7868","14":"tag-7880","15":"tag-7870","16":"tag-7881","17":"tag-7887","18":"tag-7876","19":"tag-7864","20":"tag-7871","21":"tag-7865","22":"tag-7873","23":"tag-7874","24":"tag-7866","25":"tag-7869","26":"tag-7867","27":"tag-7885","28":"tag-7879","29":"tag-7872","30":"tag-7884","31":"tag-7882","32":"tag-7878","33":"tag-7877"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115346528276784639","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=486746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/486747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=486746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=486746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=486746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}