President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has commented on the crash of the AZAL aircraft near Aktau.
As reported by ORDA citing Azertag, he noted that the exact causes of the plane crash will become known after the black boxes are decoded.
"But even the initial versions are quite well-founded and based on facts. And the facts are that the Azerbaijani civilian aircraft sustained external damage over Russian territory, near the city of Grozny, and practically lost control. We also know that our aircraft was rendered uncontrollable by electronic warfare means. This was the first damage inflicted on the plane," the statement reads.
At the same time, he commented on the version put forward by Russian specialists.
"One of the things that upset and surprised us was that Russian official structures put forward versions about an explosion of some gas cylinder. That is, it openly showed that the Russian side wants to hush up the matter, and this, of course, does no credit to anyone," said the President of Azerbaijan.
Aliyev noted that he expects from Russia "an admission of guilt, punishment of those responsible, and payment of compensation."
"To admit guilt, to apologise in a timely manner to Azerbaijan, which is considered a friendly country, and to communicate this to the public — these were all measures and steps that needed to be taken. Unfortunately, for the first three days we heard nothing from Russia except delusional versions," stated Ilham Aliyev.
Incidentally, three days after the plane crash, Aliyev had a conversation with the President of the Russian Federation, during which Vladimir Putin apologised for the fact that the "incident" with the aircraft occurred in Russian airspace.
As a reminder, on 25 December, three kilometres from the Aktau airport, an aircraft of the Azerbaijani airline AZAL, which was travelling from Baku to Grozny, crashed. There were 67 people on board, including 5 crew members.
Minister of Transport Marat Karabayev reported that as a result of the incident, 38 passengers died, and 29 people, including three children, were hospitalised.