Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev blasted Russia on Monday for trying to avoid responsibility for the downing of an Azerbaijani airliner last month, doubling down on a rare confrontation with the Kremlin that has highlighted Russia’s loss of influence in much of the former Soviet Union.

Meeting with the two surviving flight attendants and the relatives of the crew members who died in the accident, Mr. Aliyev said Russia’s efforts “to cover up this incident” caused “surprise, regret and justified indignation” in Azerbaijan.

Preliminary investigation of accident on December 25 that killed 38 people made it clear, he said, that if the Russian military and civilian authorities had properly coordinated, “this tragedy could have been prevented.” He repeated his claim, backed up by footage from the scene and Western assessments, that the plane crashed after being hit by Russian air defenses.

“I can say with certainty that representatives of the Russian Federation are responsible for the deaths of Azerbaijani citizens in this disaster,” Aliyev said. “We demand justice, we demand punishment of the guilty, we demand complete transparency and decent behavior.”

In a deviation from protocol, Mr. Aliyev made those televised comments in Russian, not Azerbaijani; analysts described the decision as a sign of respect for the Russian-speaking relatives of the dead pilots, as well as a sign that Mr. Aliyev wanted to be heard in Moscow.

While President Vladimir V. Putin apologized Mr. To Ali on December 28 for the “tragic incident” that “occurred in Russian airspace,” he stopped accepting Russian responsibility for it.

After the accident, pro-government voices in Azerbaijan threw out rare and harsh criticism of Russia, despite the close relationship between Mr. Aliev and Mr. Putin, two authoritarian leaders who revealed more and more common points in dealing with the West.

Farid Shafiyev, president of the government-funded Center for International Relations Analysis in Baku, Azerbaijan, said in a telephone interview that Russia’s “imperial arrogance” was evident in the obfuscation of the circumstances of the accident.

Speaking about Russia’s failure to admit its guilt, Mr. Shafiyev said: “They still look down on all those former Soviet countries.”

Russia has been mostly silent about the accident in recent days. There was no comment from the Kremlin on Monday, and Russian state media reported only sparsely on Mr. Aliyev’s address.

Shafiyev said Moscow’s quiet response may reflect its confidence in its commanding position throughout the post-Soviet world. But he added that that confidence may be misplaced, pointing to the stunning collapse of the pro-Russian regime in Syria last month as evidence of how quickly its fortunes can change.

“Right now they can feel very comfortable because they’re still kind of a great power, but over time that could change,” he said.

Across the former Soviet Union, Russia’s grip continues to show signs of strain. The main enemy of Azerbaijan, Armenia, no longer sees Russia as a guarantor of its security and seeks support from the West and Iran. In Central Asia, China is on the rise, as are the former Soviet republics there view Russia as weakened and distracted by its war in Ukraine.

And just last week, another crack appeared in Transnistria, the pro-Russian breakaway region of Moldova. The stoppage of gas to the region from Russia since January 1, as a result of the war in Ukraine, raised questions about Russia’s ability to maintain a loyal outpost on the southeastern edge of Europe.

By comparison, Azerbaijan seemed a more positive story for Moscow. Mr Putin was on a two-day state visit in August, along with footage showing him relaxing in a T-shirt with Mr. Aliyev. The head of Russia’s foreign intelligence agency visited in September, marking Azerbaijan as an ally in countering Western efforts to undermine “internal political stability in our states.”

But last month’s accident illuminated the limits of that partnership – and prompted Mr. Aliyev to attack his country’s far more powerful northern neighbor.

Rinse with revenues from fossil fuels and brimming with confidence after defeating Armenia in the protracted conflict in 2023, the autocratic Mr. Aliyev, 63, is using the fallout to dismiss any pretense that he is dependent on Mr. Putin.

Airplane Embraer 190 of Azerbaijan Airlines with 67 passengers crashed into a ball of black smoke and orange flames on the shores of the Caspian Lake in Kazakhstan after failing to land at its destination, the city of Grozny in southern Russia. Mr Putin told Mr Aliyev three days later that Russian air defenses were fighting Ukrainian drones in the area as the jet approached, according to a Kremlin statement.

Mr. Aliyev said on December 29 that this explanation and limited apology from Mr. Putin it would not be enough. Russia “must admit its guilt”, he said, and punish those responsible. At the meeting that was televised on Monday, Mr. Aliyev went further, stating that “there are very serious issues here that constitute a crime.”

The airspace over Grozny was closed only after the plane was shot at, said Mr. Aliyev.

“If there was a threat to Russian airspace, the captain of the plane should have been informed about it immediately,” Mr. Aliyev said.

Mr. Aliyev repeated his claim that Moscow-based aviation authorities, which usually investigate plane crashes in much of the former Soviet Union, including Azerbaijan, could not be trusted to conduct a fair investigation – another striking rebuke to Mr.’s government. Putin.

Kazakhstan has agreed to send the plane’s black boxes to Brazil, the country where the aircraft manufacturer Embraer is based.

Kazakhstan’s president, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, told a Kazakh newspaper in an interview published Friday that sending the black boxes to Brazil was the only way “to ensure a fair and impartial investigation.”

Kazakhstan is another former Soviet republic that is cautiously trying to distance itself from Russia after its invasion of Ukraine. Azerbaijani media praised Kazakhstan for its “impartiality and objectivity” in investigating the crash, rather than helping Russia cover it up.

Mr Aliyev said the black boxes could explain why the plane flew over the Caspian Sea to crash in Kazakhstan, instead of making an emergency landing at a nearby airport in Russia.

A senior Russian aviation official said the plane’s pilot decided to land in Kazakhstan. On December 29, Mr. Aliyev theorized that Russian air traffic controllers may have diverted the plane expecting it to crash into the Caspian Sea, in which case “attempts to cover up the problem” would have been “successful”.

Mr. Aliyev also said at the time that Azerbaijan would expect Russia to pay compensation to the victims. But in a phone interview Monday, Joshgun Nesibli, the brother of one of the flight attendants on the plane, said he was interested in something else.

“Why do I need compensation from Russia? I don’t need that,” said Mr. Nesibli, whose sister, Hokuma Aliyeva, died in the accident. “I need them to apologize to the people, even though this won’t bring our sister back.”

Milana Mazaeva, Oleg Matsnev and Nataliya Vasilyeva contributed reporting.