From crash to crisis How Russia’s refusal to take responsibility for a downed passenger plane wrecked relations with Azerbaijan
Relations between Moscow and Baku have continued to deteriorate ever since a deadly plane crash in Kazakhstan on Christmas Day sparked a diplomatic crisis. Russia’s refusal to take responsibility for downing the Azerbaijan Airlines passenger plane has left Azerbaijan indignant, leading Baku to shutter the local Russian House and threaten to take legal action against Russia “in an international court.” Meduza explains how the plane crash wrecked Russia’s warming relationship with Azerbaijan and why Moscow has limited options for putting pressure on Baku going forward.
‘Allied cooperation’
In late 2024, relations between Russia and Azerbaijan were on the upswing: Vladimir Putin visited Baku, Ilham Aliyev gave an interview to Russian propagandist Dmitry Kiselyov, and officials from both countries were discussing large-scale economic projects (such as the North-South Corridor connecting Russia to Iran via Azerbaijan).
That said, one couldn’t definitively call Azerbaijan’s president Putin’s ally. Baku’s foreign policy stance is more complex than it seems at first glance — and this is especially noticeable when it comes to the war in Ukraine. On the one hand, just days before Russia’s 2022 invasion, Aliyev was in Moscow, where he and Putin signed a joint declaration on bilateral “allied cooperation.” Azerbaijan also didn’t vote on U.N. resolutions condemning Russia’s full-scale invasion or declared annexation of Ukrainian territories.
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On the other hand, Baku has sent Kyiv more than $40 million in humanitarian aid (the most recent shipment was just last week), brought Ukrainian children to Azerbaijan for medical treatment, and supported Ukraine’s territorial integrity. Moreover, Aliyev is the only leader of a former Soviet country to meet with both Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky in the last three years (his most recent meeting with the Ukrainian president was at the World Economic Forum in Davos on January 22).
The crisis in relations with Moscow began on December 25, 2024, when an Azerbaijan Airlines passenger plane en route from Baku to Grozny crash-landed near the city of Aktau in western Kazakhstan, killing 38 people. Azerbaijani government sources immediately said that a Russian air defense missile likely downed the plane, as indicated by the visual damage to the aircraft.
Aliyev demanded that Moscow acknowledge its responsibility for the crash, apologize to Baku, punish those responsible, and pay compensation to the families of the victims. Putin apologized to his Azerbaijani counterpart days later, though he only partially admitted responsibility, acknowledging that the “tragic incident occurred in Russian airspace.”
‘External objects’
On February 4, Kazakhstan’s Transportation Ministry published a preliminary report on the Azerbaijan Airlines crash, which confirmed that the plane was hit by “external objects.” The report didn’t specify what type of weapon shot down the plane, citing plans for “further studies and examinations.” By this point, government sources in Azerbaijan were confidently saying that the plane was hit by a Russian Pantsir-S air defense system. However, there is no independent confirmation of this as yet.
At the same time, Kazakhstan’s report left no doubt that the pilots were unaware of the closed-skies protocol (or “Carpet Plan”) reportedly in place in Grozny at the time of the incident due to a Ukrainian drone attack. Excerpts from the crew’s communications with dispatchers reveal that the “Carpet Plan” was only announced at 5:21 a.m., while the Azerbaijan Airlines plane was damaged at 5:13. Russian aviation experts, such as Aeroflot pilot Andrey Litvinov, also acknowledged that the protocol was announced after the incident.
Nevertheless, the Russian authorities did not respond to the report, and pro-Kremlin media focused on the following talking points:
- The pilots themselves decided the flight path;
- Other potential causes such as a bird strike or an oxygen tank explosion weren’t invented by Moscow but rather put forward by the pilots themselves;
- Kazakhstan’s report is just preliminary, and there’s no point in drawing any conclusions from it.
This really angered Azerbaijan, which believed that the report would force Moscow to tone down its rhetoric. However, Russian officials apparently have no desire to admit responsibility — and perhaps hope to shift the blame onto Ukraine. Pro-war bloggers, for example, have been circulating unconfirmed reports that Ukrainian drones deliberately attacked Grozny airport at the time of the Azerbaijani plane’s landing, in order to set up Russia.
What’s next?
On January 24, Azerbaijan’s Baku TV aired a segment accusing the Russian House in Baku — the local office of Russia’s cultural diplomacy agency Rossotrudnichestvo — of espionage and supporting separatist movements. Against the backdrop of the plane crash crisis, this was the first hint that Baku wanted to shut down the Russian House. On February 6, Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry officially ordered the Rosstrudnichestvo office’s closure due to a lack of legal registration.
The closure of the Russian House marked an important symbolic step, since these cultural centers are one of Moscow’s main “soft power” instruments in other countries. What’s more, Baku still holds a grudge against Moscow for shutting down its diaspora organization, the All-Russian Azerbaijani Congress (ARAC), in 2017. Amid the current crisis, Azerbaijani media have begun writing about the ARAC’s closure once again.
Then, on February 10, Azerbaijan banned Russian State Duma lawmaker Nikolai Valuev from entering the country after he suggested a clampdown on diaspora groups in response to the closure of the Russian House in Baku.
Going forward, Russia has few options for putting pressure on Azerbaijan. It could make money transfers more difficult, limit fruit and vegetable imports, or close the Baku-Novorossiysk oil pipeline. However, Azerbaijan’s economic dependence on Russia is not that great, especially in terms of money transfers. Azerbaijani citizens rarely come to Russia to earn money: the unstable ruble exchange rate makes such trips unprofitable, and the land border between Russia and Azerbaijan has been closed since 2020, complicating travel between the two countries.
Moreover, escalating the conflict would certainly lead to retaliatory measures from Baku — and this would be sensitive for Russia, particularly if the measures affect the development of transportation infrastructure and trade with Iran. (Russian, Azerbaijani, and Iranian officials were supposed to hold a meeting about transportation links on January 28, but it never took place — probably due to the ongoing spat between Moscow and Baku).
Azerbaijan, meanwhile, has threatened to sue Russia in an international court. However, Baku is unlikely to make good on this anytime soon. A trial requires all available evidence, and there is no final report on the plane crash (it should be ready within a year) or even a conclusion about its cause. It’s also unclear where Baku would file such a lawsuit since neither Russia nor Azerbaijan recognize the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.
Pro-government experts from Baku have cautiously suggested that Azerbaijan could turn to an international arbitration court. However, the conflict may be resolved before Azerbaijan can file a lawsuit. “The doors for dialogue with Russia remain open. Moscow must openly admit its guilt and take responsibility,” Azerbaijan’s state news agency APA reported on February 5.
For now, Baku’s actions allow it to write bold headlines about a “second Malaysian Boeing” (a reference to Russia’s 2014 downing of Malaysia Airlines MH17) and put pressure on Moscow to plead guilty and pay compensation to the victims.
Explainer by Roman Chernikov
Abridged translation by Eilish Hart