Category: Selected Articles

The crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines (AZAL) airplane in Aktau, Kazakhstan, has the potential to significantly effect Azerbaijan’s relations with Russia if Moscow mishandles the situation. To date, there has been a lack of transparency and responsiveness on the part of the Kremlin. The implications could include accelerating the deterioration of Moscow’s influence in the region. These implications, therefore, concern not only the local countries, but any international actor having strategic interests in the South Caucasus and Central Asia, or otherwise concerned with their future role and place in the evolving post–Cold War international system.

The Facts of the Disaster

Given the rapid dissemination of information in the 2020s by electronic means, whereby authentic real-time videos made by first responders to the fuselage on the ground were uploaded to social media and available worldwide within minutes, the overall outline and some details of the incident are by now generally well known.

The airplane was en route from Baku to Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, when explosions in the air damaged the cabin. Very soon after, but not as a result of these explosions, the pilots completely lost all electronic orientation and navigation capabilities. According to one source close to Azerbaijan’s investigation into the crash, preliminary results showed the plane was struck by a Russian Pantsir-S air defense system and its communications were then paralyzed by electronic warfare systems on the approach into Grozny. Ukrainian military drones have repeatedly targeted Russia’s southern regions, triggering Russian air defenses. “No one claims that it was done on purpose,” the source said; but “taking into account the established facts, Baku expects the Russian side to confess to the shooting down of the Azerbaijani aircraft.”

After being hit, the plane was refused emergency landing permission at Grozny (2.5 kilometers from where the incident occurred) and at least two other Russian airports in the North Caucasus (Makhachkala, 155 kilometers away, and Mineral’nye Vody, 225 kilometers), before being directed by local air control out over the Caspian Sea. Once there, the pilots made the decision to try to land in Aktau (435 kilometers away). Against all odds, they succeeded in avoiding the need to ditch the aircraft into the sea, which would have undoubtedly killed all on board and also destroyed the craft, making any investigation into what had happened impossible. In the event, according to the Kazakhstani authorities, out of 62 passengers and five crew, 32 survivors were initially rescued.

Captain Igor Kshnyakin, Co-pilot (First Officer) Alexander Kalyaninov, and Purser Hokuma Aliyeva died when the front wheel touched down ahead of the back wheels, as a result of which the cockpit was thrown violently away from the ongoing wreck. However, this is what created the conditions for at least some of the passengers to survive, as it split the fuselage in two. The event has garnered international attention, including for the professionalism of the crew.

What Has Happened Since

At first, Kazakhstan declared its own unilateral competence to investigate the crash, which occurred on its sovereign territory, rejecting requests by both Azerbaijan and Russia to participate in the investigation while proposing that they only observe proceedings. Oddly, Kazakhstan then proposed jointly with Russia that the Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC) of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) should undertake the investigation.

A report then surfaced in Kazakhstani and Russian media that the flight’s oxygen tank, or else an oxygen cylinder that a passenger had somehow managed to take into the cabin, had exploded. These claims were separately refuted by the two surviving flight attendants. They explained that in the case of an oxygen tank, the fuselage would have been in pieces in the air with no survivors at all, and that taking an oxygen cylinder on board simply did not happen due to inspections. Azerbaijan soundly rejected the IAC forum, understanding that Kazakhstan may not have full independence in its investigation and that Baku would therefore be outnumbered at the IAC.

Azerbaijan is demanding that the incident be investigated by an international group of experts and specialists on the Embraer aircraft that was involved, and has already sent an investigative team, including experts from Turkey, to Grozny to begin to undertake its own examination of the facts. According to the latest reports, they will participate in Kazakhstan’s investigation.

Azerbaijan has already revoked permits for Russian airlines to fly to Azerbaijani airports, and a number of international airlines have suspended flights to Russia on either a temporary or a permanent basis.

Significance for Azerbaijan–Russia Relations

On November 9, 2020, just after Azerbaijani forces had captured the city of Shusha during the Second Karabakh War and were preparing to enter the capital Khankendi only 10 kilometers away, a Russian helicopter took to the air far away, but less than one kilometer from the border of Azerbaijan’s Nakhchivan exclave with Armenia. This was not a regular maneuver; the helicopter did not identify itself, and it was shot down.

Russia immediately demanded not only an acknowledgment, apology, and compensation, but also that Azerbaijan should immediately halt its preparations to enter Khankendi from Shusha and cease all military activities in Karabakh. In all these matters, including the unrelated demand for a ceasefire, Azerbaijan acquiesced.

While this event has not formally been invoked by officials in Baku, it establishes a baseline for what Azerbaijan might expect in the nature of a Russian response to the airplane shot down over Grozny, resulting in its crash near Aktau. Likewise, since the 2020 event saw Azerbaijan offering compensation for the Russian helicopter crew, this will be plausibly regarded in Baku as a precedent likely influencing expectations in the current scenario.

The helicopter incident in 2020 was more of a bilateral issue between Azerbaijan and Russia that received less international scrutiny. However, the AZAL airplane crash is already attracting more global attention due to the involvement of civilian lives, international air travel, and the implications for aviation safety over or near Russian territory.

Azerbaijan’s immediate apology in 2020 helped mitigate potential escalation. In contrast, the recent incident in Kazakhstan has led to more significant public outcry and demands for accountability from Russia, possibly because of the civilian nature of the crash and the potentially more severe implications for air travel safety.

In Azerbaijan, the crew are regarded as heroes. Newsweek magazine quoted an American expert as saying, “These pilots didn’t just fly the plane — they fought it every step of the way. This level of skill and composure is what separates extraordinary pilots from the rest. What they achieved is nothing short of miraculous.” The three deceased crew-members, already lionized by the public for their heroism, have been buried in the Second Alley of Honor in Baku.

What Happens Next?

Azerbaijan earlier rejected an offer from the Chechen authorities of financial aid to the families of those killed or injured, replying that, “We are fully capable of supporting our citizens and will continue to do so. What Azerbaijan demands [from official Moscow] is an acknowledgment of the incident, an apology, and appropriate compensation.”

In the event, when Russian President Vladimir Putin telephoned to his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev, all that was offered was acknowledgment. Carefully reading the reports of Putin’s telephone call to Aliyev reveals that Russia has not admitted responsibility. Rather, Putin expressed regret that the event had occurred in Russian airspace. There was no admission of responsibility, no apology, and no offer of compensation to families. Yet it is clear by now that there were military mistakes requiring a criminal investigation to uncover the truth.

More than that, there have been suggestions that Russian air traffic control prevented the AZAL plane from landing at nearby airports in the North Caucasus. We know that the plane did not land in the North Caucasus, and there are unconfirmed reports that it was denied landing at least two airports. The information available is not conclusive, but if confirmed, this would indicate criminal intent.

If confirmed, then observers would draw the conclusion that there may even have been instructions given to the aircraft, which had lost all GPS orientation because of electronic warfare supposedly deployed against Ukrainian drones, that directed it out over the Caspian Sea where — and but for the expertise and dedication of the cockpit crew — it would have crashed without survivors and been lost without significant trace.

The Russian Federation’s conduct regarding the shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17) and its subsequent investigation, would then be invoked to malign Moscow’s motives. The strong appearance would be created that, once Russian authorities realized what had happened, they tried to make the evidence (an airplane full of human beings) disappear.

The Geopolitical Stakes

The crash of the Azerbaijan Airlines flight in Aktau has highlighted not only the dangers of overflying Russian territory, but also the strained dynamics between Moscow and Baku. As Azerbaijan continues to demand accountability, Russia’s response — or lack thereof — will undoubtedly influence the trajectory of their bilateral relations and the broader regional equilibrium. Whether Moscow will acknowledge its potential culpability and take steps to address the implications remains to be seen. What is certain is that this tragedy has brought the geopolitical stakes of the South Caucasus and its neighboring regions into sharper focus.

The Azerbaijan Airlines crash has the potential to accelerate a strategic recalibration in the South Caucasus. If Russia continues its pattern of opacity and deflection, it risks alienating not only Azerbaijan but also other regional actors who may see Moscow as an unreliable partner. In contrast, Azerbaijan stands to gain greater international sympathy and leverage by positioning itself as a victim of Russian negligence or aggression.

This event may further tilt the balance of power in favor of Turkey and the West, eroding Russia’s ability to act as the dominant arbiter in the region. Over time, this could lead to a redefinition of the South Caucasus, not as a Russian sphere of influence, but as a contested space where multiple powers compete for economic and strategic advantage. For Azerbaijan, the incident offers a moment to assert its sovereignty and reshape its foreign policy trajectory in a way that diminishes Moscow’s hold over the region.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A passenger plane burst into flames Sunday after it skidded off a runway at a South Korean airport and slammed into a concrete fence when its front landing gear apparently failed to deploy, killing at least 151 people, officials said, in one of the country’s worst aviation disasters.

The National Fire Agency said rescuers raced to pull people from the Jeju Air passenger plane carrying 181 people at the airport in the town of Muan, about 290 kilometers (180 miles) south of Seoul. The Transport Ministry said the plane was a 15-year-old Boeing 737-800 jet that was returning from Bangkok and that the crash happened at 9:03 a.m. local time.

At least 151 people — 71 women, 71 men and nine others whose genders weren’t immediately identifiable — died in the fire, the fire agency said. The death toll is expected to rise further as the rest of the people aboard the plane remain missing about six hours after the incident.

Emergency workers pulled out two people, both crew members, to safety, and local health officials said they remain conscious. The fire agency deployed 32 fire trucks and several helicopters to contain the fire. About 1,560 firefighters, police officers, soldiers and other officials were also sent to the site, it said.

Footage of the crash aired by South Korean television channels showed the Jeju Air plane skidding across the airstrip at high speed, apparently with its landing gear still closed, overrunning the runway and colliding head-on with a concrete wall on the outskirts of the facility, triggering an explosion. Other local TV stations aired footage showing thick plumes of black smoke billowing from the plane, which was engulfed in flames.

Lee Jeong-hyeon, chief of the Muan fire station, told a televised briefing that the plane was completely destroyed, with only the tail assembly remaining recognizable among the wreckage. Lee said that workers were looking into various possibilities about what caused the crash, including whether the aircraft was struck by birds, Lee said.

Transport Ministry officials later said their early assessment of communication records show the airport control tower issued a bird strike warning to the plane shortly before it intended to land and gave its pilot permission to land in a different area. The pilot sent out a distress signal shortly before the plane went past the runway and skidded across a buffer zone before hitting the wall, the officials said.

Senior Transport Ministry official Joo Jong-wan said workers have retrieved the flight data and cockpit voice recorders of the plane’s black box, which will be examined by government experts investigating the cause of the crash and fire. Joo said the runway at the Muan airport will be closed until Jan. 1.

Emergency officials in Muan said the plane’s landing gear appeared to have malfunctioned.

The Transport Ministry said the plane’s passengers include two Thai nationals.

Thailand’s prime minister, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, expressed deep condolences to the families of those affected by the accident in a post on social platform X. Paetongtarn said she ordered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to provide assistance immediately.

Kerati Kijmanawat, the director of the Airports of Thailand, confirmed in a statement that Jeju Air flight 7C 2216 departed from Suvarnabhumi Airport with no reports of abnormal conditions with the aircraft or on the runway.

Jeju Air in a statement expressed its “deep apology” over the crash and said it will do its “utmost to manage the aftermath of the accident.”

In a televised news conference, Kim E-bae, Jeju Air’s president, deeply bowed with other senior company officials as he apologized to bereaved families and said he feels “full responsibility” for the incident. Kim said the company hadn’t identified any mechanical problems with the aircraft following regular checkups and that he would wait for the results of government investigations into the cause of the incident.

Family members wailed as officials announced the names of some victims at a lounge in the Muan airport.

Boeing said in a statement on X it was in contact with Jeju Air and is ready to support the company in dealing with the crash.

“We extend our deepest condolences to the families who lost loved ones, and our thoughts remain with the passengers and crew,” Boeing said.

It’s one of the deadliest disasters in South Korea’s aviation history. The last time South Korea suffered a large-scale air disaster was in 1997, when a Korean Airline plane crashed in Guam, killing 228 people on board. In 2013, an Asiana Airlines plane crash-landed in San Francisco, killing three and injuring approximately 200.

Sunday’s accident was also one of the worst landing mishaps since a July 2007 crash that killed all 187 people on board and 12 others on the ground when an Airbus A320 slid off a slick airstrip in Sao Paulo and collided with a nearby building, according to data compiled by the Flight Safety Foundation, a nonprofit group aimed at improving air safety. In 2010, 158 people died when an Air India Express aircraft overshot a runway in Mangalore, India, and plummeted into a gorge before erupting into flames, according to the safety foundation.

The incident came as South Korea is embroiled into a huge political crisis triggered by President Yoon Suk Yeol’s stunning imposition of martial law and ensuing impeachment. Last Friday, South Korean lawmakers impeached acting President Han Duck-soo and suspended his duties, leading Deputy Prime Minister Choi Sang-mok to take over.

Choi ordered officials to employ all available resources to rescue the passengers and crew before he headed to Muan. Yoon’s office said his chief secretary, Chung Jin-suk, will preside over an emergency meeting between senior presidential staff later on Sunday to discuss the crash.

__

Associated Press journalists Bobby Caina Calvan in New York and Chalida Ekvitthayavechnukul and Jintamas Saksornchai in Bangkok contributed to this report.

Russia has announced a new variant of its Pantsir short-range air defense system that can be loaded with as many as 48 small interceptors and that it says is specifically intended to help shield critical infrastructure from uncrewed aerial threats. For some time now, Ukrainian forces have been launching increasingly longer-range drone attacks on military bases and industrial facilities inside Russia.

The Pantsir-SMD-E made its debut at the Army 2024 exhibition, which opened at the Patriot Park in Kubinka outside of Moscow yesterday. The SMD-E variant was shown in a self-contained static configuration, but it is not hard to imagine that it could be integrated onto various tactical trucks or other platforms, including ships, like previous Pantsir types.

The new SMD-E variant of Pantsir has a turret that can be loaded with up to 12 57E6-series short-range command-guided surface-to-air missiles, as many as 48 TKB-1055 very-short-range interceptors, or a mix thereof. The TKB-1055 is a relatively recent development focused heavily on defeating drone threats and has a stated maximum range of just over 4 miles (7 kilometers) compared to the 57E6-E’s nearly 12 and a half miles (20 kilometers), per a placard seen at Army 2024.

The Pantsir-SMD-E air defense missile system for the defense of stationary objects was brought to the Army-2024 forum. This is a new stage in the development of Pantsir, designed primarily to combat drones in the context of an ongoing special military operation.

The key… pic.twitter.com/10U8mKgX8M

— Rybar Force (@rybar_force) August 12, 2024

Like previous versions of Pantsir, the SMD-E’s turret also has two integrated radars, one for spotting and tracking targets and another fire control type for directing the command-guided missiles. Where the new variant notably differs from most of the preceding versions of the system is in its lack of gun armament.

Most ground-based Pantsir variants have turrets armed with two twin-barrel 2A38M 30mm automatic cannons, as well as up to 12 57E6-series missiles. The navalized Pantsir-M developed for installation on ships substitutes the 2A38M cannons for six-barrel 30mm AO-18KDs.

In 2022, a model of a missile-only Pantsir-SM-TBM version, able to be loaded with up to 24 57E6-series missiles at a time, emerged. The SM-TBM variant also lacked a search radar, relying instead on offboard sensors (including on other Pantsirs) for initial cueing. It is unclear how far the development of that variant has progressed.

“Pantsir-SM TBM” SAM system.
“TBM” is a transport and combat vehicle and will operate as part of other “Pantsir” SAM system.
There are no cannon armament and no detection radar, which allowed to increase the ammunition of anti-aircraft missiles from 12 to 24; pic.twitter.com/iGYPVaeRja

— Massimo Frantarelli (@MrFrantarelli) June 29, 2022

“The Pantsir family of systems is constantly being improved and expanded. The new Pantsir-SMD-E is designed to protect stationary objects from air attack weapons, including massive drone attacks,” Bekkhan Ozdoyev, head of the “arms cluster” of Russia’s state-run Rostec defense conglomerate, said according to a machine translation of an official press release on the new Pantsir variant. “To combat these targets, the system can carry 48 short-range missiles. These are effective and inexpensive ammunition that reliably protect against small drones, and allow, figuratively speaking, not to shoot sparrows with a cannon.”

If they work as advertised, using the smaller and lower-cost TKB-1055s would offer advantages over the 57E6 family in the point-defense role, especially in terms of magazine depth. They could be even more effective combined with newer radars already introduced onto previous versions of Pantsir that are said to increase the total number of targets the system can track and engage simultaneously. Deleting the cannons and their feed systems could also reduce the SMD-E’s cost and time to manufacture compared to other versions of the system, at least to a degree. These latter points could be particularly important given the impacts of extensive U.S. and other Western sanctions on Russia’s defense industry.

At the same time, the shift away from guns seems curious given that the Ukrainian military has been routinely demonstrating that traditional anti-aircraft artillery remains an effective and low-cost tool for shooting down subsonic drones and cruise missiles, as well as other lower-flying aerial threats. In more of a direct comparison with Pantsir, Ukraine’s air defense forces have been making especially good use of German-made Gepard self-propelled anti-aircraft guns, which are armed only with a pair of radar-directed 35mm automatic cannons. Ukraine has now begun receiving newer Skynex anti-aircraft guns from Germany, as well.

Ukraine Air Force Command releases footage of German-made Gepard anti-aircraft gun taking down what it says is a Shahed drone in the Odesa region. Gepard has radar and optical target tracking with two guns providing combined firing rate of >1,000 rounds per minute. pic.twitter.com/P9g4Mem8fB

— Chris Partridge (@Chris1603) September 4, 2023

Ukraine: A German supplied ‘Gepard’ anti-aircraft gun shooting down a Russian cruise missile. Despite their detractors, these systems have proven highly effective in Ukrainian service.

pic.twitter.com/z2dIPypI7P

— Jimmy Rushton (@JimmySecUK) December 5, 2022

The Pantsir family has already earned a very mixed reputation since its introduction in the early 2010s, especially due to reportedly poor performance in Syria and Libya. The upgraded radars found on more recent variants are said to have been developed as a direct result of lessons learned from use during operations in Syria.

Regardless, variants of the Pantsir system remain in widespread use in the Russian armed forces, including in Syria, where one fired a missile at a U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drone in 2022.

Pantsirs have also been important components of existing efforts to shield critical military, government, and industrial facilities from Ukrainian drone attacks. Last year, Pantsirs appeared on rooftops in Moscow and near one of President Vladimir Putin’s official residences just outside the capital as Ukraine stepped up its uncrewed aerial assault. These were part of a larger array of additional layered air defenses deployed in and around the Russian capital that also included extra S-400 long-range surface-to-air missile batteries.

In Moscow, a Russian Pantsir-S1 anti-aircraft missile system has been placed on the roof of a building of the Central District Department of Education on Teterinsky Lane, for the reasons so far unknown.

55.745352, 37.651179 pic.twitter.com/qMd1NVDYhW

— Status-6 (Military & Conflict News) (@Archer83Able) January 19, 2023

Furthermore, the explicit focus on using Pantsir-SMD-E for point defense of critical infrastructure against drones underscores how real a danger Ukraine’s uncrewed attackers have come to pose to highly prized facilities deeper and deeper inside Russia. Uncrewed aerial systems present serious threats to Russian forces in frontline fighting in Ukraine, as well.

The routine use of uncrewed aerial systems, including multiple tiers of weaponized types, on both sides of the war in Ukraine has provided clear evidence that drone threats, which are not new, are still evolving in scale and scope. Long-range kamikaze drones look set to be a growing danger on a global level to military forces on the frontlines and critical infrastructure deeper within a country’s home territory.

“So, you know, the problem got complicated here in the last two and a half years, and the proliferation… every country, you know, can afford these kinds of things and we have to go against them,” U.S. Air Force Gen. James Hecker, his service’s top office in Europe and also NATO’s Allied Air Command, said while speaking about drone threats last month. “We can use them [as] well and put adversaries on the wrong side of the cost curve.”

So, in turn, there has been a surge of interest in counter-drone capabilities worldwide and not just to protect forces on land. As already noted, a navalized version of Pantsir already exists and ships are at ever-increasing risk of being attacked by drones, as has been highlighted by the ongoing crisis in and around the Red Sea.

It is not hard to see a maritime role for Pantsir-SMD-E, or a further anti-drone-focused version thereof. There is a certain general precedent for this already with Israel’s adaptation of the land-based Iron Dome counter-rockets, artillery, and mortars system, which also has a point defense capability against drones and cruise missiles, for use on ships. The Russian Navy has also been observed adding Tor surface-to-air missile systems to ships in an improvised manner to help bolster point air defense capabilities.

Interesante imagen de la INS Lahav (Sa’ar 5) cargando dos baterías Iron Dome a popa. Probablemente estará realizando pruebas para el C-Dome, la versión navalizada de ese sistema que dispondrá de sus propios VLS (silos verticales) en las nuevas corvetas Sa’ar 6.

#Israel#Navypic.twitter.com/jmeb61TEpC

— Israel Defensa

Gabriel Yerushalmi (@Defensa_Israel) January 17, 2021

All of this might also prompt export interest in a system like Pantsir-SMD-E in countries undaunted by the prospect of Western sanctions. A foreign partner could help further defray development and acquisition costs for Russia.

It does remain to be seen how effective, or even widely fielded by Russia, Pantsir-SMD-E ends up being. Still, the new Pantsir variant reflects real and still growing concerns about the threats drones pose that extend well beyond the war in Ukraine and traditional battlefields, in general.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com