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Russia’s president is said to have blamed birds or a Ukrainian drone for a Dec. 25 crash of an Azerbaijani plane. Azerbaijan says Russian air defenses were at fault.
By Anton Troianovski
Reporting from Baku, Azerbaijan
It’s a tense verbal exchange between two authoritarian leaders accustomed to getting what they want.
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia provides explanations for the Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash that had killed 38 other people days earlier. Perhaps it’s a flock of birds, Putin said, or an exploding fuel can. Perhaps a Ukrainian drone.
But Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev did not, according to two other people familiar with the phone call last December. Within hours of the crash it became clear that the plane had been shot down through Russian air defenses, in what appeared to be a fatal mistake. It left shrapnel lodged in a passenger’s leg and pierced the fuselage.
On December 29, Aliyev made his anger public by mentioning the Russian president by name. “Attempts to deny apparent facts,” he said, “are absurd and meaningless. “
The people who described the phone call insisted on anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic communications. The Kremlin did not respond to a request for comment.
The furor over the plane crash – and Aliyev’s willingness to challenge Putin in public – revealed a notable rift between two post-Soviet leaders who had become close during more than two decades in power. Putin attempted to recruit Aliyev in an obvious attempt to conceal the cause of the accident; Aliyev, emboldened by Russia’s weakened influence in countries it once dominated, insisted that Russia publicly acknowledge its guilt.
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