Russia’s Vladimir Putin told Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev on Thursday that two Russian anti-aircraft missiles had exploded several meters away from an Azerbaijan Airlines passenger jet that crashed last year, killing 38 people on board.
The Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer 190 jet was flying from Baku to Grozny in the republic of Chechnya on Dec. 25 when it disappeared from radar near Russia’s Caspian Sea coast before crashing later near the Kazakh city of Aktau.
Russian officials had offered conflicting explanations for the disaster, initially suggesting that poor visibility or a possible bird strike was to blame, and later saying air defense systems were targeting Ukrainian drones in the area.
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Azerbaijan is NOT part of NATO. They are part of NATO’s partnership for peace, like 18 other non-NATO countries (such as Austria, Switzerland etc), but that is not the same as membership.
But yes they are hardly a democracy even though they call themselves as such and the entire region is a hotbed of strategic interests of different countries first and foremost of Russia and Iran
It is whatever you say it is.