On 27 December, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev demanded an apology and admission of guilt from Russia over the downing of an Azerbaijan Airlines plane.
Quote from Aliyev: "Firstly, Russia must apologise to Azerbaijan. Secondly, it must admit its guilt. Thirdly, the perpetrators must be punished and held criminally liable, and compensation must be paid to the Azerbaijani state and the affected passengers and crew members. These are our conditions.
The first of these was fulfilled yesterday. I hope that our other conditions will be accepted. All these conditions are fair. There are no extraordinary demands or issues here: this is based on international experience and the principles of normal human conduct."
During a telephone conversation with Aliyev yesterday, Russian leader Vladimir Putin apologised for the fact that the "tragic incident involving the Azerbaijan Airlines plane occurred in Russian airspace", but did not admit Russia’s guilt.
On 25 December, an Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer aircraft en route from Baku to Grozny crashed near the Kazakh city of Aktau on the Caspian Sea. 38 people were killed.
Azerbaijan Airlines said the crash was caused by "external physical and technical interference".
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gruese on December 29th, 2024 at 15:28 UTC »
This one is really interesting.
Russia showed weakness when they gave up their support for Armenia and let Azerbaijan take Nagorno-Karabakh. They probably rely on Azerbaijan heavily as a transit country to sell their products and circumvent sanctions.
Azerbaijan is in the power position here, as can be seen from Putin uncharacteristically apologizing, and quickly too.
Aliyev is not a nice guy, he will squeeze Putin for everything he can. He can profit off of Russia's desperation and be fairly safe due to Putin needing him, plus he's got Turkey's support.
Putin is bleeding money and influence.
zj_chrt on December 29th, 2024 at 15:19 UTC »
Solovyov next week:
Azerbaijan is a country full of nazis supported by CIA and NATO, our nukes take 30 seconds to flatten Baku to the ground. After all, Azerbaijan is historically Russian because Russian prince XYZ was born there over 800 years ago. Azerbaijan will never enter BRICS as long as its puppet government operates!
Russian citizens watching TV: Yeeesss king 😎🥴
SlapThatAce on December 29th, 2024 at 14:58 UTC »
He's going to have to wait a long time.