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Two incidents that tested Russia's neighbours
Summary
A look back at 26 December 2024, when Azerbaijani officials pointed to a Russian missile in a deadly crash and Finland detained a vessel over a power cable.
What did two separate incidents reported on 26 December 2024 have in common? Both put Russia at the centre of accusations from neighbouring states, one in the air and one under the sea.
The Azerbaijan Airlines crash
On 26 December 2024, Azerbaijani government officials told Reuters that a Russian military surface-to-air missile, launched from a Pantsir-S system, was responsible for the crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines plane that killed 38 people on 25 December. The officials also said the aircraft's GPS navigation system had been jammed during the flight.
The flight, Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8243, was a scheduled service from Baku to Grozny. As later described, the Embraer E190 was severely damaged on approach to Grozny. The pilots tried to divert, but the hydraulic system failed, leading to a loss of control and a crash near Aktau in Kazakhstan. There were 62 passengers and five crew on board. Of those 67 people, 38 died, including both pilots and a flight attendant, while 29 survived with injuries.
The Estlink 2 detention
The same day, Finnish border guards and police detained a Russian vessel suspected of damaging the Estlink-2 submarine power cable on 25 December.
The case followed earlier trouble on the seabed. On 17–18 November 2024, two telecommunication cables, BCS East-West Interlink and C-Lion1, were disrupted in the Baltic Sea, near each other and almost simultaneously. European government officials and NATO member states responded with accusations of hybrid warfare and sabotage. Investigators later looked at the Chinese cargo ship Yi Peng 3, which had been near the cables at the time, and the damage was not conclusively attributed to any party.
What the day showed
The two events were not reported as linked, and they differed in kind: one involved a civilian airliner and a claim about a specific weapon system, the other a suspected case of damage to energy infrastructure. What they shared was the pressure they placed on states bordering Russia. Azerbaijan's officials gave a specific technical account of the missile and the jamming, while Finland's authorities acted physically, detaining a vessel. For readers following the region, 26 December 2024 marked a point where official accounts in both cases moved from suspicion towards concrete allegations or action.
