Russian leader Vladimir Putin, in facing Azerbaijan’s continuing demand that those responsible for accidentally shooting down a Azerbaijani civilian airliner be held accountable, is damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t accede to Baku’s pressure.

The chief source of Putin’s dilemma is that the tragedy occurred over Chechnya, perhaps the only corner of Russia where his word isn’t necessarily law. If the incident had occurred in the skies over any other Russian region, action might already have been taken to ease bilateral tension. But Putin’s ability to call the shots in Chechnya is limited, especially given the strain on Russia’s economy and security apparatus caused by the Ukraine war.

For the past two decades, Putin has outsourced responsibility for maintaining stability in the restive region – the center of two conflicts since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 – to a local warlord, Ramzan Kadyrov. Kadyrov has demonstrated unquestioned loyalty to Putin while transforming Chechnya into his personal fiefdom, complete with his own private army numbering in the tens of thousands.

On January 6, Brazilian experts announced that data had been recovered from the black boxes of the Azerbaijani jetliner, which crashed December 25 in the Kazakh city of Aktau, killing 38 of the 67 individuals aboard. The tail section of the jetliner, which had originally been bound for the Chechen capital Grozny, exhibited signs of having been hit by anti-aircraft flak. The black box data was handed over to Kazakh authorities leading the crash investigation. The contents should become known by the end of January.

The same day, Azerbaijani leader Ilham Aliyev renewed his demands for justice for the shoot-down,  accusing Russia of trying to cover up the facts.

“We demand the punishment of those responsible, and we insist on full transparency and accountability in this matter. Human decency and ethical conduct must prevail,” he said during a televised meeting with relatives of crash victims.

He accused Russian officials of gross negligence. “If Russian airspace was under threat, the captain of the plane should have been promptly informed. The airspace should have been closed immediately, and the plane should have been instructed to turn back,” he said. “I should also mention that approximately 10 days prior to the accident, a similar incident occurred near the city of Grozny, when an AZAL plane was turned back midway.”

At this stage, he added, Azerbaijan is determined to uncover the reason why the stricken plane headed to Aktau, across the Caspian Sea, instead of attempting an emergency landing at one of several available airports on Russian territory. 

Even if he wants to, it won’t be easy for Putin to ease Aliyev’s “rightful indignation.” That’s because the person in charge of Chechen air defenses on the day of the tragedy was Kadyrov’s nephew, Khamzat Kadyrov, the secretary of Chechnya’s security council. 

Shortly before the doomed Azeri airliner entered Chechen airspace, the region came under attack by Ukrainian drones. There appears to have been a breakdown in communications between air defense authorities and civilian air traffic controllers, leading to the failure to warn the approaching jetliner to avoid the area, and for defense forces to mistake the plane for a Ukrainian drone. The controller in charge of directing the airliner was a former soccer player for Ramzan Kadyrov’s favorite club, raising questions about his experience.

On the day of the tragedy, Khamzat Kadyrov issued a triumphal statement on Instagram announcing that all Ukrainian drones had been destroyed by Chechen air defenses, not mentioning the jetliner. The next day, Ramzan Kadyrov gave his nephew a medal. Such a public display of Kadyrov’s support for his nephew would seem to complicate any effort at this point to prosecute members of the Chechen air defense forces, or others, for causing the tragedy.

The Azerbaijani news agency Turan reported December 30 that Ramzan Kadyrov attempted to contact Aliyev following the shoot-down, but the Azerbaijani leader refused to take the call.

All this leaves Putin in a no-win situation. His natural inclination is never to admit responsibility when things go wrong. But in this case, he also may lack the means to compel Kadyrov to give up his nephew, or others to comply with Azerbaijan’s demand that those responsible face justice. Putin likewise has little incentive to tangle with Kadyrov, given his strategic needs of keeping Chechnya calm as he struggles to keep the lid on simmering economic discontent across Russia and the war effort going in Ukraine.

But in not giving Aliyev satisfaction, Putin risks alienating a key ally. A freeze in Azerbaijani-Russian relations could lead to a breakdown in the so-called North-South corridor, which is a key economic conduit for Russia’s war effort.

“Had proper measures been taken to close the Russian airspace near the city of Grozny, and had ground services followed all the necessary protocols with proper coordination between the armed forces of Russia and civilian services, this tragedy could have been prevented,” Aliyev stated.