Azerbaijan looms large in Russia-Ukraine conflict

On the programme ‘De cara al mundo’ on Onda Madrid, reporter and journalist María Senovilla, collaborator of Atalayar, analysed the plane crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines plane that ended up crashing in Aktau, Kazakhstan. 

She also considered the massive attack on energy and civilian interests in Ukraine. 

Ukraine blames Russia for the downing of the plane that crashed in Kazakhstan and Russia claims that no hasty conclusions should be drawn about the causes of the crash. 

Ukraine is being joined by more and more international voices supporting the same thesis as investigations continue.  

New details of this fatal incident were revealed at a press conference held by the Azerbaijani government, where they explained that, once the plane was damaged, Russia also refused permission for the civilian-laden aircraft to land at up to three different airports in an attempt to drive it into the Caspian Sea and crash-land it there.  

Finally, they forced an emergency landing near the city of Aktau. As more and more information about Russia's role in the incident comes to light, it is becoming increasingly clear. 38 people died in this attack, because I think we can stop calling it an accident, and 29 managed to survive on Christmas Day. Notice that there had been no fatal civilian airliner crash in the whole of 2024. And flight J282-43 was sadly the first to occur on Christmas Day. Some Russian bloggers were quick to publish that they most likely mistook the plane for a Ukrainian drone and that is why anti-aircraft defences were activated and eventually fired at the aircraft. The theory was that the aircraft had collided with a flock of birds and that this caused the incident. However, since it was possible to make a crash landing, much of the fuselage of the aircraft was left intact and the remains of shrapnel could be seen with the naked eye in some places. And of course, the birds' version could not be sustained.  

Ten years ago, it should be remembered that Russia shot down another plane with an anti-aircraft missile. It was in the summer of 2014. It was a Boeing 777 flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. It was attacked while flying over Ukrainian airspace and all 298 people on board were killed. The point is that that downing of another civilian airliner did not have strong consequences for the Kremlin, and when they do not sanction such acts, you risk it happening again, as it did this week.  

Moreover, when you see the image of the fuselage of that Malaysia Airlines plane, it is very similar to what we have seen this time in the Azerbaijan plane. Russia has this problem, it will have to explain itself and we will see what the consequences are, but it also claims that the sinking of its ship, the cargo ship between Spain and Algeria, was an act of terrorism. British media say that this cargo ship was on its way to Syria to pick up Russian weapons after the fall of the dictator Al-Assad.  

Yes, the freighter was an act of terrorism, but the plane was not, was it? Well, the fact is that the freighter Ursa Major, as it was called, was already identified as one of the ships that operated regularly in the Syrian port, where Russia still has a base while waiting to see what happens with the new government, whether it is allowed to stay there or has to be evacuated.

So the suspicions that it was carrying armaments or going for armaments were quite well founded. The ship was wrecked off the coast of Cartagena after suffering an explosion in the engine room and was rescued by another Russian warship. It had left St Petersburg twelve days earlier. It was bound for the port of Vladivostok, in the easternmost part of Russia, so it had to skirt the entire European continent, at least according to the official route map, but intelligence sources, both Spanish and Ukrainian, suggested that the merchant ship was bound for Syria to move both military equipment and ammunition after the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime.  

It was a large vessel of 142 metres in length, and Russian media claimed that it was engaged in transporting cranes and other material used in ports to build, for example, icebreakers. Curiously, however, the vessel was operated by a company working for Putin's defence ministry, which regularly undertakes operations related to Russian military logistics.  

Spanish Maritime Rescue, for its part, did what it had to do, it rescued the crew of the ship, which sank completely at 10 p.m. on Monday at 115 kilometres off Las Águilas, in Murcia. And part of the crew had to be evacuated and transferred to the port of Cartagena, despite the fact that, as I said, another Russian warship had permission to rescue this cargo ship, and by now, we imagine that the survivors have already been repatriated to Moscow.  

Maria, the problems that Vladimir Putin has, that Russia has, do not prevent them from continuing with their lethal bombardment of energy and civilian interests in Ukraine, unfortunately with resounding results. 

Lethal and, moreover, highly symbolic, because this was Putin's latest Christmas present to the civilian population of Ukraine, to provoke a massive attack, which is now the 13th such attack. In this case, what they did was to leave millions of people without electricity and heating on Christmas Day, and without the international community raising its voice, as we have become accustomed to, although we never tire of repeating it in these microphones. Russia launched some 70 missiles, of which Ukraine was able to shoot down more than 50, and also a swarm of drones, which it is increasingly arming with thermobaric bombs, so that they represent an ever greater danger.  

It is no longer just missiles, but also drones launched against electricity substations that are hitting their target and damaging the infrastructure. As I say, the electrical infrastructure was the target. Let us remember that this is a war crime, even if Russia does not care. Bombing critical infrastructure for the civilian population is a war crime, and the Kharkiv region on this occasion was the worst hit.  

To date, thousands and thousands of homes in the Kharkiv region have not been able to restore heating. There are also severe power cuts in Kiev, the capital, and other provincial capitals, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to repair this critical infrastructure because of the accumulation of damage caused by successive Russian bombardments. Ukrainian workers don't stop working, they don't stop trying to repair everything that is bombed, but, as I say, imagine the accumulation of these thirteen major attacks on energy infrastructure that Russia has perpetrated in less than twelve months. It gets to the point where it's impossible to rebuild from the damage that's left. On top of this, the attack left poignant images of people sheltering in the metro singing Christmas songs in the early hours of the morning of the 24th to the 25th, as the explosions went off outside.