President Ilham Aliyev has publicly pressed Russia to admit it accidentally shot down an Azerbaijan Airlines passenger plane in December, an incident that killed 38 people.

Aliyev, speaking at a news conference in the city of Khankendi during an event called The Global Media Forum, made clear that he wanted much more from Moscow whom he accused of inaction following the downing of the airliner. “We know exactly what happened and we can prove it. Moreover, we are confident that Russian officials also know what happened,” Aliyev said.

“The real question is: why didn’t they do what any responsible neighbour should do?”
He said Azerbaijan expected the incident to be formally acknowledged, for those responsible to be held accountable, for compensation to be paid to victims’ families and those injured, and for Moscow to reimburse the cost of the destroyed aircraft. “These are standard expectations within the framework of international law and good-neighbourly relations,” he said.

Flight J2-8243, en route from Baku to the Chechen capital Grozny, crash-landed near Aktau in Kazakhstan after diverting from southern Russia, where Ukrainian drones were reported to be attacking several cities. Thirty-eight people were killed and 29 survived. Russian air defence systems reportedly mistook the plane for a threat and fired upon it. While President Vladimir Putin apologised for the “tragic incident,” he stopped short of admitting that Russian anti-aircraft fire caused the crash. But he stopped short of saying Russia had shot down the aircraft.

Ties between Moscow and Baku have seriously deteriorated in recent months after Russian police detained a group of ethnic Azerbaijanis living in Russia and accused them of various historic crimes.

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