Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev attends a summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, 6 November 2024. Photo: EPA/IGOR KOVALENKO

In a further sign of worsening relations between Baku and Moscow, Azerbaijan is preparing to file an international lawsuit against Russia over the crash in December of an Azerbaijan Airlines aircraft in Aktau, Kazakhstan, President Ilham Aliyev announced on Saturday.

Aliyev described the circumstances surrounding the disaster as being “as clear as day”, according to Azerbaijani media outlet Minval. Aliyev went on to say: “The Prosecutor General of Azerbaijan makes inquiries to the head of the Russian Investigative Committee, but is told only that the investigation is ongoing. That position is counterproductive, and Azerbaijan intends to file a case with international courts.”

An Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer 190 passenger plane crashed near the Kazakh city of Aktau on 25 December, killing 38 of the 67 people on board. While Vladimir Putin apologised to his Azerbaijani counterparts for the crash, which he called a “tragic incident”, he refused to admit that Russian air defences had shot down the plane.

Aliyev said Azerbaijan was demanding that Moscow admit its guilt, punish those who shot down the plane, pay compensation to the families of the victims and compensate the airline for the loss of the aircraft.

In early February, Kazakhstan’s Transport Ministry published a preliminary report into the plane crash, in which experts confirmed that the aircraft had been damaged by “external objects”. Aviation experts told Novaya Europe that the report only confirmed that the aircraft had been shot down.

On 2 July, Minval published a leaked note allegedly written by Russian military captain Dmitry Paladichuk, in which he takes responsibility for transmitting the final order to shoot down the flight.

Tensions between Russia and Azerbaijan have rapidly escalated since two Azerbaijani citizens died under unclear circumstances, and over 50 were arrested during a police raid in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg in late June. Since then, law enforcement authorities in Azerbaijan and Russia have engaged in tit-for-tat arrests in a series of high-profile raids, including at the offices of Sputnik Azerbaijan, a Kremlin-backed news agency.