Aliyev calls on Russia to fully admit that he caused the plane crash in Azerbaijan

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has demanded Russia’s full admission of responsibility for causing the recent Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash in Kazakhstan and called for punishment for those responsible.

The passenger plane was shot at from the ground while in Russian airspace over the Chechen capital Grozny, Aliyev told national broadcaster AzTV on Sunday.

He said he did not believe that Russian air defenses had shot down the plane on purpose, but that some Russian authorities had tried to cover up the cause of the crash.

On Saturday, Russian President Vladimir Putin apologized to Aliyev after the crash that killed 38. There were 29 survivors at the crash site near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan on the Caspian Sea.

“It is clear that the final version will only be known after the black boxes have been evaluated,” he said. But the facts already created a picture, he added.

The pilots had lost control of Grozny when electronic measures were used. It was then hit by fire from the ground, Aliyev said.

“Unfortunately, for the first three days we only heard idiotic versions from Russia,” Aliyev told the broadcaster.

“One of the things that frustrated and surprised us was that Russian officials spread the version of a gas balloon explosion,” he said. It showed that the Russian side had tried to conduct a cover-up, and that was unfair, Aliyev said.

He paid his respects to the victims at Baku airport and praised the courage and professionalism of the pilots who guided the damaged plane to an emergency landing in Kazakhstan.

Meanwhile, the committee responsible for investigating the crash has decided to have the flight recorders of the ill-fated plane analyzed in Brazil, where Embraer aircraft are manufactured, the Kazakh Ministry of Transport announced.