Title: Dangerous skies: on the crash of an Azerbaijani airliner
The crash of an Azerbaijani airliner near the Kazakhstani city of Aktau that killed 38 people has again brought into focus the danger of flying over the Russia-Ukraine conflict zone. The Embraer 190 was en route from Baku to Russia’s Grozny when it was diverted and attempted an emergency landing some kilometres from Aktau. While initial fears centered around a bird hit, government and media reports have increasingly pointed at a misguided Russian anti-drone attack on the plane. Holes in the plane and videos of oxygen masks releasing would indicate depressurisation. The aircraft was still airborne after the attack, eventually crossing the Caspian Sea on the east, a distance of some 300 miles as the crow flies. Reports talk about the plane’s control system being damaged, which would possibly explain its loopy flight paths, and permission being denied to the damaged aircraft to land in nearby airports although norms would allow a damaged civilian plane to land anywhere close. The Cockpit Voice Recorder and the Digital Flight Data Recorder have been recovered, which would reveal much information. Azerbaijan has sovereignty over the flight and the Brazilian manufacturer, Embraer, would also be party to the multi-stakeholder investigation that would reveal the cause of the accident, the course of events, and whether and how the control systems of the flight were affected. The last would indicate the role, if any, played by jamming systems that are part of air and drone defence.
Azerbaijani and U.S. officials have blamed Russian air defence systems responding to a Ukrainian attack likely with drones. Russian President Vladimir Putin apologised to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev “for the fact that the tragic incident occurred in Russian airspace”. In this half-hearted apology, he stopped short of acknowledging active Russian involvement or that it was collateral damage to Azerbaijan, a Russian ally. That the plane was damaged nearly 500 miles from the Ukrainian border has shown the state of warfare today, in which drones and microdrones have moved centrestage as low-cost weapons capable of strikes and surveillance across broad swathes of enemy territory causing much damage deep inside enemy territory. If the Kazakhstan air crash calls for one urgent response, it is for the de-escalation of military action in the region, the success of which would depend preponderantly on Moscow’s willingness to end its invasion of Ukraine and an agreement on limiting the expansion of NATO. Failure to do so now risks not only collateral damage resulting in such avoidable loss of innocent lives, but could also see more regional actors getting pulled into the conflict.
Meaning of the word:
| Word | Meaning | Synonyms | Antonyms |
| Sovereignty | Sovereignty refers to the supreme authority or power of a state or governing body to govern itself without external interference | Authority Autonomy Independence Dominion | Dependence Subjugation Submission Colonialism |
| Collateral | Collateral refers to an asset or property that a borrower offers to a lender as security for a loan. If the borrower fails to repay the loan or meet the agreed-upon terms, the lender can seize the collateral to recover the loan amount. | Security Guarantee Pledge Assurance | Debt Liability Risk Unsecured |
