It’s difficult to overestimate the anger this air crash is causing in Azerbaijan. It has already taken on the tone of a national tragedy, with the pilots and stewardesses being held up as martyrs for their efforts - at the expense of their own lives - to save the lives of others and reassure the passengers.

And this anger - unsurprisingly - is being directed towards Russia. For Azerbaijanis, dealing with Russia is a necessary evil.  There is no love, and no trust. The biggest domestic criticism that President Ilham Aliyev received over the 2020 Nagorno Karabakh ceasefire agreement was allowing in Russian peacekeepers, and the government has long taken an approach of wary pragmatism in its relations with Russia. Under the surface, even the Black January remembrance events, commemorating the Soviet crushing of Azerbaijani protests in 1990, can take on an implicit anti-Kremlin hue. 

The current public anger is much more explicit and very direct, condemning not only the alleged shooting down of the plane, but also the contention that Russian air traffic control forced the plane to fly to Aktau in the hope it would crash in the sea. And, of course, there is the lack of a Russian admission of guilt, despite President Putin’s so-called apology that fell short of taking responsibility. It is remarkable to see educated, Russian-speaking Azerbaijanis posting "Russia must apologize to Azerbaijan" on their status updates, or rueing the fact that Azerbaijan has the fate of being a neighbor of Russia. 

This outpouring of anger is generating a lot of domestic pressure on President Aliyev, and will have prompted his December 29 response before official findings were announced, calling on Russia to take responsibility and apologize. Aliyev pronounced the flight was downed by “ground fire” and “rendered uncontrollable by electronic warfare systems.”  Not mincing his condemnation, Azerbaijan’s President noted Russian obfuscation as proof of an intention to cover up the reason for the crash.  Aliyev expressed the belief that this was not an intentional act, but also the frustration that Russia only offered “absurd” excuses.

Initially, Aliyev had cited early suspicions that the plane “encountered external physical and technical interference,” while officials and state media clearly were given license to raise the missile strike claim. Some pointed out that when Azerbaijan shot down a Russian military helicopter on the Armenia/Nakhchivan border in the frantic hours before the 2020 ceasefire agreement, Azerbaijan admitted responsibility, apologized and paid compensation. No-one in Azerbaijan can see why Russia should not likewise take responsibility this time. Putin’s non-apology apology will clearly not suffice, and Aliyev’s latest statement has raised the stakes significantly.

So what can President Aliyev do to persuade Russia to take responsibility and apologize properly? In truth, he doesn't have many specific cards to play. Yes, Azerbaijan could cause problems for Russian trade going by rail and road to/from Türkiye and Iran, tighten up on export controls, and make financial transactions more difficult. Equally, Russia could retaliate by blocking Azerbaijani exports, in particular agricultural products. But the reality is that for both countries the economic relationship is useful but not fundamental (one reason why Azerbaijan has been able to maintain its distance). And President Aliyev will need to bear in mind the significant numbers of Azerbaijanis living in Russia.

The leverage is probably more that Putin has long tried to play nice with Azerbaijan, recognizing its value and role as a sort of swing voter, in neither the Western nor Russian camp. Russia plays a long game, looking to promote the Russian language and culture, while keeping Azerbaijan as much on its side as possible. They see Azerbaijan - both at the political and military level - moving much closer to Türkiye in recent years, and the Russian response is generally to try to strengthen ties with Azerbaijan. 

And so, without an admission of guilt and a proper apology, Putin could stand to lose Azerbaijan for generations. Aliyev would simply not be able to continue with business as usual, and Azerbaijanis would hold this crash - and the death of the martyrs, who may well end up having a public holiday commemorating them - against Russia for a very long time. While this doesn't mean Azerbaijan will flip into a Western camp, Russian influence will greatly diminish or simply disappear, and anything to do with official Russia will be resented. 

One further point of domestic pressure on Aliyev will be the issue of land borders. Azerbaijan has not reopened its land borders since Covid, to the immense frustration of the population, who can no longer drive to Georgia, Russia, or Iran for holidays or shopping. There are voices noting that the only reason the passengers were on the plane was because they could not travel by car to Russia; and, clearly, many Azerbaijanis will now be wary of flying to Russia. How Aliyev responds to this will bear watching. 

It will be interesting, too, to see the reactions in other CIS states to the crash. It's one thing to deny responsibility for the shooting down of the Malaysian Airlines aircraft in 2014, with all the issues over deniability of the Russian role in supporting Donbas separatists, but quite another to shoot down an aircraft from a "friendly" country over Russian territory, and where social media has documented the events and damage in such detail. 

The public jury has already made up its mind, and the fact that Kazakhstan among other countries cancelled flights to several Russian towns is a clear sign that they too don’t buy the bird-strike claim. Again, Russian obfuscation and denial will only serve to exacerbate tensions in the relationships. Tajik President Emomali Rahmon had already publicly berated Putin for treating the former Soviet states like colonies; that sense of resentment can only increase.

 

The writer is a former British Ambassador to Azerbaijan.