If there’s one thing Vladimir Putin hates, it’s moments of weakness. And he just met one. [Le 28 décembre]the Russian president had to apologize to his neighbor, the autocrat Ilham Aliev, for the shooting which caused the deadly crash of an Azerbaijani airliner [le 25 décembre].
But, far from satisfying his counterpart, his declaration earned him reproaches the next day. The Azerbaijani president called the Russian remarks“insane”, “absurd”, “stupid”, and accused Moscow of wanting to cover up the affair. The message is clear: with his apologies, Vladimir Putin only respected one of the many demands made by Baku after the crash.
A changing balance of power
Although it is perfectly understandable, Aliyev’s reaction is nonetheless astonishing. Understandable, because its recriminations are well-founded: Moscow remained silent for several days and tried to conceal its involvement in this scandalous attack on a commercial flight from an allied country. And the apologies published on the Kremlin website after the telephone conversation between Vladimir Putin and his counterpart in Baku remain more than evasive. According to the official press release, the master of the Kremlin would have “apologized for the tragic accident [qui] occurred in Russian airspace”.
We just have to imagine the rest: that the flight from Baku was visibly disrupted by electronic jamming systems as it approached Grozny, [sa destination] in Russia, then the plane hit by a missile because it was confused with a Ukrainian drone. And that the damage caused by the projectile led to the crash, during the descent to the Kazakh airport to which it was diverted.
But Baku’s reaction is also surprising, because Vladimir Putin is not used to neighboring and friendly countries publicly criticizing his way of governing. The accidental strafing of Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8243 thus brutally underlines the evolution of
