Azerbaijan’s Aliyev says crashed jetliner downed by Russia unintentionally
Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev says the country's jetliner that crashed this week was unintentionally shot down by Russian forces.
The Azerbaijan Airlines' Embraer 190 aircraft crash landed on Wednesday near the city of Aktau in western Kazakhstan, leaving 38 out of the 62 passengers and five crew members on board the plane dead.
Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8243 was "shot down by accident," Aliyev confirmed on state TV on Sunday. "We can say with complete clarity that the plane was shot down by Russia."
"We are not saying that it was done intentionally, but it was done," Aliyev added.
He further said that the navigation system of the aircraft, which was flying from Azerbaijan’s capital city of Baku to the southern Russian city of Grozny, had been malfunctioning due to some sort of electrical jamming.
The airliner diverted and was mistakenly flying towards Kazakhstan when it was shot down by the Russians' air defense system.
Aliyev rebuked Russian officials who had tried to "hush up" the cause of the plane crash by attributing the incident to birds colliding with the aircraft, or some sort of blast on the plane caused by a gas cylinder.
He said the initial explanations that were put forward by Russian officials after the crash had left him both "upset and surprised."
"Unfortunately, in the first three days we heard only absurd versions from Russia," Aliyev complained, insisting that the Russians needed to take responsibility, punish whoever caused the crash, and compensate.
"First, the Russian side must apologize to Azerbaijan. Second, it must admit its guilt. Third, punish the guilty, bring them to criminal responsibility, and pay compensation to the Azerbaijani state, the injured passengers and crew members," Aliyev said.
On Saturday, Russian President Vladimir Putin apologized "for the fact that the tragic incident occurred in Russian airspace."
The Kremlin said it had launched a criminal investigation to determine the cause of the incident.
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