It took a year and a half. Baku and Moscow have finally indicated on Wednesday that they have reached an agreement regarding the crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines plane in late 2024, including compensations and acknowledging the role of the Russian anti-aircraft defense in the accident that claimed 38 lives.
The aircraft, an Embraer 190 with 67 people on board that was supposed to fly from Baku to Grozny in the Russian Caucasus, first attempted to land at its final destination before being redirected to Kazakhstan, where it crashed on December 25, 2024.
The foreign ministers of both countries stated on Wednesday in a joint communique that the crash was the result of an “unintentional action” by a Russian anti-aircraft defense system in Russian airspace, and they mentioned an agreement on financial compensations without further details.
This agreement, following exchanges between Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliev and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, marks an important milestone in warming bilateral relations.
The relations between this former Soviet republic and Russia had significantly deteriorated after the Azerbaijani president demanded that Russia acknowledge its responsibility.
Ilham Aliev accused Moscow of wanting to “cover up the problem.” Vladimir Putin later apologized “for the tragic incident occurring in Russian airspace.”
The head of European diplomacy, Kaja Kallas, considered that this crash painfully recalled the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 in 2014, which resulted in 298 deaths. According to an international investigation, this plane was shot down by a Russian BUK anti-aircraft missile over a region of Ukraine controlled by pro-Russian separatist rebels.
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