Amid the recent fatal plane crash in Azerbaijan, the calls for action against those responsible intensified on Monday, with the Azeri government urging Russia to begin an investigation surrounding the real causes of the plane crash.
Government officials on Monday said that “Russia has promised to identify and punish those responsible behind the ill-intentioned actions that left 38 people dead on December 25.”
Confirming the development, the Russian side accepted the mistake and began the investigation into the incident. Earlier, Baku demanded that Russia must accept the mistake and punish all those involved in the incident.
While the administration did not confirm the striking of the Azerbaijan plane with its surface-to-air missile defence systems, Putin has expressed regret over the incident.
“Putin called on President Ilham Aliyev to express solidarity, while he also confirmed that the Russian air defences were operational when this incident took place inside Russian airspace.”
While the investigation has yet to come to a meaningful conclusion, the question here arises: is it possible that, based on Russian threat assessment, with its most advanced radar system and currently the best and most sophisticated missile defence technologies in the world, it could make such a blunder?
On the day when the incident occurred, Russian air defence batteries were active and were engaged in thwarting Ukrainian drone assaults, as per Moscow’s version of the story.
What it means is that the people who launched the missile were not capable of differentiating between civilian planes and drones. Well, it sounds absurd that a plane could be mistaken for a missile or a drone.
While there are speculations that it was shot to create a rift between the two friendly nations, those speculations were quickly brushed aside as officials from both sides agreed to launch an official investigation.
Whatever the case, there have been instances when passenger planes became targets of surface-to-air missiles, especially when the countries hostile to each other were engaged in military confrontations.
Even though modern weapons are so sophisticated and advanced, they can easily detect, identify, and even categorise objects from hundreds of kilometres away.
However, when it comes to errors, it is mostly due to two main reasons. One is the technical malfunction, which is what might have forced a launch. Second, the men who operate this kind of modern technology make erroneous decisions.
A similar case occurred when India and Pakistan engaged in air confrontations on February 27, 2019, when a Srinagar-based Air Force unit allegedly shot down its chopper when it was returning from a routine flight.
While on one side Russian authorities partially accepted the mistake that its forces shot down the Azerbaijani passenger plane.
On the other, its investigating agencies are accused of destroying the evidence from the crash site, leaving out scope for further speculations that it was shot intentionally by the Russian air defence units.
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