A document has spread about the AZAL aircraft crash: will the guilty be able to avoid punishment?

A document concerning the incident with the shot down plane of Azerbaijani airline AZAL was sent to the BT News Telegram channel bot from an anonymous account.

As reported by BAKU.WS with reference to the above-mentioned Telegram channel, according to its contents, the document comes from the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation and is addressed to the General Prosecutor's Office of Azerbaijan. It claims that the AZAL plane allegedly could not land on Russian territory due to unfavorable weather conditions, and then collided with the ground during landing. On this basis, the criminal case was terminated.

Such formulations appear to be an attempt to shirk responsibility for the tragedy that occurred. A legitimate question arises: on what basis does the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation terminate the criminal case, effectively shifting responsibility to "weather conditions"?

In this case, it turns out that those responsible for the death of people will not be held accountable. Meanwhile, it is the Russian side that bears responsibility for the tragedy: the AZAL plane was hit by a missile from the "Pantsir-S1" air defense system, after which it fell in the area of Kazakhstan's Aktau airport, not in the air harbor itself, as they try to present it in the document.

The content of this document directly contradicts the official position of Russian President Vladimir Putin, voiced on October 9 in Dushanbe on the sidelines of the CIS Heads of State Council meeting. At that time, Putin acknowledged that the AZAL civilian aircraft crashed as a result of the operation of the air defense system of the Russian Armed Forces, and declared readiness to do "everything that is required in such situations."

However, "everything that is required" primarily means identifying those responsible and bringing them to justice. The termination of the criminal case clearly does not correspond to this.

The Telegram channel notes that the authenticity of this document is unknown.