It was a tense dialog between two authoritarian leaders accustomed to getting their approach.
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia was providing explanations for the Azerbaijan Airways airplane crash that had killed 38 folks days earlier. Maybe it was a flock of birds, Mr. Putin stated, or an exploding gasoline canister. Perhaps a Ukrainian drone.
However President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan was not shopping for it, based on two folks accustomed to that late December cellphone name. It had turn into clear inside hours of the crash that the airplane had been shot down by Russian air defenses in what seemed to be a deadly mistake. It left shrapnel lodged within the leg of 1 passenger and riddled the fuselage with holes.
On Dec. 29, Mr. Aliyev went public together with his anger with out mentioning the Russian president by title. “Makes an attempt to disclaim apparent details,” he stated, “are each nonsensical and absurd.”
The individuals who described the cellphone name insisted on anonymity to debate delicate diplomatic communications. The Kremlin didn’t reply to a request for remark.
The furor over the airplane crash — and Mr. Aliyev’s willingness to problem Mr. Putin in public — has revealed a exceptional breach between two post-Soviet rulers who had turn into shut over greater than 20 years in energy. Mr. Putin tried to enlist Mr. Aliyev in an obvious effort to maintain quiet the reason for the crash; Mr. Aliyev, emboldened by Russia’s weakened affect in lands it as soon as dominated, insisted that Russia publicly acknowledge its guilt.
Interviews final week with Azerbaijani officers and other people near the federal government confirmed how the Dec. 25 crash of an Embraer 190, with 67 folks aboard, has turn into a geopolitical milestone for the previous Soviet Union. Somewhat than permitting Mr. Putin to dictate his response to the tragedy, Mr. Aliyev has repeatedly lashed out at Russia over its failure to just accept accountability.
Rasim Musabekov, a member of the Azerbaijani Parliament’s international affairs committee, described Russia’s response to the crash as “an absurd angle.”
“Azerbaijan is not going to settle for such a chauvinist angle,” he added.
Behind the scenes, the interviews confirmed, these tensions flared instantly between Mr. Aliyev and Mr. Putin, though the 2 autocrats have typically discovered frequent floor. Within the name on Dec. 28 and one other the subsequent day, the folks accustomed to the calls stated, Mr. Putin urged Mr. Aliyev to conform to have a Moscow-based aviation physique examine the crash. Mr. Aliyev refused, insisting that the airplane’s black packing containers be decoded in Brazil, the place the jet was made, a placing show of distrust of the Russian chief.
Officers in Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, organized interviews for The New York Occasions with three survivors, who stated it grew to become clear to some passengers that they have been below assault instantly after not less than two explosions rocked the airplane in midair.
After the second blast, a woman began screaming. Leyla Omarova, 28, seemed throughout the aisle from her window seat and noticed the lady’s tights stained with blood.
Three rows behind them, Nurullah Sirajov, 71, had been making an attempt to consolation his spouse. The primary bang should have been the touchdown gear, he’d instructed her. They’d by no means flown earlier than.
Then got here the second explosion, a rush of wind from the again of the airplane and yells, he stated, from different passengers: “They hit us.”
Because the jet jerked up and down, coming inside 100 toes of the Caspian Sea, Mr. Sirajov thought that not less than his and his spouse’s marital squabbles over who would die first would lastly be resolved: They might die collectively. However after the entrance a part of the airplane disintegrated on influence, the tail part broke off, turned over and slid tons of of yards by the sandy soil.
“Anybody alive?” Mr. Sirajov remembers yelling within the sudden silence as he dangled upside-down from his seatbelt.
As a result of Europe closed its airspace to Russia after Mr. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, many Russians flying westward now join in Azerbaijan, an oil-and-gas-rich former Soviet republic of 10 million sandwiched between Russia and Iran. Russia additionally sees Azerbaijan as a key hyperlink in an expanded trade route south to Iran, India and the Persian Gulf.
Its function as a transit level for a Russia beset by sanctions is only one approach that Azerbaijan has seen its leverage rise in opposition to its far bigger northern neighbor. Mr. Aliyev has additionally taken benefit of the Russian navy’s distraction in Ukraine to push Russian peacekeeping troops out of Nagorno-Karabakh, the Armenian-controlled enclave that Azerbaijan recaptured in 2023.
Mr. Aliyev has solidified his nation’s alliance with Turkey and armed Azerbaijan with high-tech weapons bought from Israel. He has waged a fierce crackdown against activists and independent journalists, however has maintained a relationship with Europe, which sees Azerbaijan as a key various to Russian oil and gasoline.
Farhad Mammadov, a political analyst in Baku, stated that Russia’s political and financial “levers of strain” on Azerbaijan had been decreased to “virtually none.” Aykhan Hajizada, the spokesman for Azerbaijan’s Overseas Ministry, was blunt in arguing that his nation had leverage over Russia: “They don’t need to lose Azerbaijan as effectively,” he stated.
The uproar over the airplane crash has emerged as a take a look at case. A senior American diplomat, talking on situation of anonymity as a result of he was not approved to remark publicly, described the fallout from the crash as “a proof of idea” for Azerbaijan’s capacity to stay up for itself. Different post-Soviet international locations which have additionally sought a extra arm’s-length relationship with Russia, like Kazakhstan, are watching intently.
“If that is the way you behave on this incident with Azerbaijan, then what is going to the Uzbeks, the Kazakhs and the opposite remaining companions of Russia consider you?” Mr. Musabekov, the member of Parliament, requested. “It’s that Russia, as a state, is a really, very poisonous accomplice that it’s worthwhile to decrease relations with.”
Mr. Aliyev, who studied in Moscow and took over as Azerbaijan’s ruler from his father in 2003, discovered concerning the crash whereas en path to a summit of post-Soviet leaders in St. Petersburg. He referred to as Mr. Putin from the airplane to inform him he was not coming.
Hours later, Azerbaijani officers landed in Aktau, Kazakhstan, the airport the place the Embraer 190 had tried to make an emergency touchdown. On the crash website close by, the officers instantly realized that the theories of a chook strike or exploded oxygen canister that that they had been listening to from Russia have been flawed.
“Once I noticed the plane, it was riddled with holes,” Rinat Huseynov, the protection director for Azerbaijan Airways, stated in an interview. “We didn’t think about that this was potential in any respect.”
Mr. Aliyev and Mr. Putin spoke once more twice within the days after the crash. Mr. Putin apologized for the “tragic incident” taking place in Russian airspace however didn’t acknowledge that Russia had shot down the airplane. The day after the apology, on Dec. 29, Mr. Aliyev went public to accuse Russia of a cover-up.
“Sadly, for the primary three days, we heard nothing from Russia apart from some absurd theories,” Mr. Aliyev said.
Officers stated they anticipated preliminary findings from the investigation by the tip of January. Mr. Aliyev reiterated final week that Russia wanted to just accept accountability and pay compensation, whereas the Kremlin stated it was cooperating with the probe.
“We’re curious about a completely goal and unbiased investigation,” Dmitri S. Peskov, Mr. Putin’s spokesman, instructed reporters final week.
The Azerbaijanis’ working principle is that the shrapnel from exploding missiles of a Russian Pantsir air-defense system broken the airplane. Steel fragments as giant as 4 inches lengthy have been discovered on the crash website.
The flight knowledge and cockpit voice recorders, officers stated, might assist clarify why the pilots selected to cross the Caspian Sea to land in Kazakhstan quite than at a better airport in Russia; Mr. Huseynov, the airline security director, stated the choice appeared logical given the cloudy circumstances in southern Russia on the time.
Contained in the passenger cabin, the flight attendants have been making an attempt to calm the panic. Ms. Omarova, en path to see household in Russia, stated she misplaced consciousness. Mr. Sirajov, who had packed New 12 months’s presents for grandchildren in Grozny, stated all he might take into consideration was comforting his spouse.
Flight data reveals that after crossing the Caspian Sea, greater than an hour after the pilots reported what they thought was a chook strike, the airplane crashed on a second try to land at Aktau airport. The entire survivors have been sitting in roughly the rear third of the airplane, based on an individual near the investigation.
After the tail part got here to a cease, Mr. Sirajov fumbled within the darkness to open his seatbelt, unable to inform what had occurred to his spouse. Solely later did he study that she had additionally survived.
Lastly, Mr. Sirajov yanked his belt open and tumbled onto the cabin’s ceiling. “Go that approach, go that approach,” he recollects listening to as somebody pushed him towards a sliver of sunshine.