Azerbaijan’s Leader, Emboldened, Picks a Rare Fight With Putin

It was a tense dialog between two authoritarian leaders accustomed to getting their method.

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia was providing explanations for the Azerbaijan Airways aircraft crash that had killed 38 individuals 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 individuals aware of that late December cellphone name. It had change into clear inside hours of the crash that the aircraft 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 identify. “Makes an attempt to disclaim apparent info,” 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 aircraft crash — and Mr. Aliyev’s willingness to problem Mr. Putin in public — has revealed a exceptional breach between two post-Soviet rulers who had change 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 individuals aboard, has change into a geopolitical milestone for the previous Soviet Union. Reasonably than permitting Mr. Putin to dictate his response to the tragedy, Mr. Aliyev has repeatedly lashed out at Russia over its failure to simply accept duty.

Rasim Musabekov, a member of the Azerbaijani Parliament’s overseas affairs committee, described Russia’s response to the crash as “an absurd perspective.”

“Azerbaijan won’t settle for such a chauvinist perspective,” he added.

Behind the scenes, the interviews confirmed, these tensions flared instantly between Mr. Aliyev and Mr. Putin, regardless that the 2 autocrats have usually discovered frequent floor. Within the name on Dec. 28 and one other the subsequent day, the individuals aware of 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 aircraft’s black containers be decoded in Brazil, the place the jet was made, a hanging show of distrust of the Russian chief.

Officers in Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, organized interviews for The New York Instances with three survivors, who stated it grew to become clear to some passengers that they have been underneath assault instantly after not less than two explosions rocked the aircraft in midair.

After the second blast, a lady 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 attempting to consolation his spouse. The primary bang should have been the touchdown gear, he’d advised her. That they had by no means flown earlier than.

Then got here the second explosion, a rush of wind from the again of the aircraft 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 aircraft disintegrated on influence, the tail part broke off, turned over and slid a whole lot 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 commerce route south to Iran, India and the Persian Gulf.

Its function as a transit level for a Russia beset by sanctions is only one method that Azerbaijan has seen its leverage rise towards its far bigger northern neighbor. Mr. Aliyev has additionally taken benefit of the Russian army’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 towards activists and unbiased 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 stress” on Azerbaijan had been lowered 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 aircraft crash has emerged as a check 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 potential to stay up for itself. Different post-Soviet nations which have additionally sought a extra arm’s-length relationship with Russia, like Kazakhstan, are watching carefully.

“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 you might want to reduce relations with.”

Mr. Aliyev, who studied in Moscow and took over as Azerbaijan’s ruler from his father in 2003, discovered in regards to the crash whereas en path to a summit of post-Soviet leaders in St. Petersburg. He known as Mr. Putin from the aircraft 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 web site close by, the officers instantly realized that the theories of a chicken strike or exploded oxygen canister that they’d been listening to from Russia have been mistaken.

“After I noticed the plane, it was riddled with holes,” Rinat Huseynov, the security 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” occurring in Russian airspace however didn’t acknowledge that Russia had shot down the aircraft. 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 stated.

Officers stated they anticipated preliminary findings from the investigation by the top of January. Mr. Aliyev reiterated final week that Russia wanted to simply accept duty and pay compensation, whereas the Kremlin stated it was cooperating with the probe.

“We’re serious about a completely goal and unbiased investigation,” Dmitri S. Peskov, Mr. Putin’s spokesman, advised reporters final week.

The Azerbaijanis’ working principle is that the shrapnel from exploding missiles of a Russian Pantsir air-defense system broken the aircraft. Steel fragments as giant as 4 inches lengthy have been discovered on the crash web site.

The flight information and cockpit voice recorders, officers stated, may assist clarify why the pilots selected to cross the Caspian Sea to land in Kazakhstan relatively than at a more in-depth 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 attempting to calm the panic. Ms. Omarova, en path to see household in Russia, stated she misplaced consciousness. Mr. Sirajov, who had packed New Yr’s presents for grandchildren in Grozny, stated all he may take into consideration was comforting his spouse.

Flight information exhibits that after crossing the Caspian Sea, greater than an hour after the pilots reported what they thought was a chicken strike, the aircraft crashed on a second try and land at Aktau airport. All the survivors have been sitting in roughly the rear third of the aircraft, 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 method, go that method,” he recollects listening to as somebody pushed him towards a sliver of sunshine.