Russia has not fulfilled its pledge to pay compensation or take legal steps following the downing of a passenger aircraft operated by Azerbaijan Airlines (AZAL), Azerbaijani lawmaker Elchin Mirzabeyli said.
The statement concerns the tragedy of December 25 last year, when an AZAL passenger plane operating a scheduled Baku–Grozny flight crashed near the Kazakh city of Aktau after being struck in Russian airspace.
Despite the professionalism of the flight crew, who managed to carry out an emergency landing, the incident resulted in the deaths of 38 people. The crash was described by Azerbaijani officials as a national tragedy.
According to Mirzabeyli, the fact that the aircraft was hit while flying over Russian territory was confirmed in the initial days following the crash. However, he said the Russian side refrained from issuing a substantive response for an extended period.
He noted that Azerbaijan’s consistent and firm position — including the government’s insistence on protecting the rights of its citizens — eventually led to a public apology from Moscow.
At a CIS leaders’ summit in Dushanbe, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that compensation would be paid and that appropriate legal steps would be taken. However, Mirzabeyli said that, to date, no concrete actions have followed those assurances.
“This is fundamentally a matter of trust between states,” the lawmaker said. “When a country acknowledges responsibility, it must follow an apology with legal action and compensation. That is a measure of respect for human rights and international obligations.”
He added that the one-year anniversary of the incident is approaching, while international practice typically requires investigations of such incidents to be completed within that timeframe.
According to Mirzabeyli, failure to take the promised steps could undermine confidence in Azerbaijan-Russia relations, as unresolved accountability issues remain a sensitive matter for Azerbaijani society.
