President Vladimir Putin on Saturday apologised to Azerbaijan’s president for what the Kremlin called a “tragic incident” over Russia in which an Azerbaijan Airlines plane crashed after Russian air defences were fired against Ukrainian drones.
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The extremely rare public apology from Putin was the closest Moscow had come to accepting some blame for Wednesday’s disaster, although the Kremlin statement did not say Russia had shot down the plane, only noting that a criminal case had been opened.
Flight J2-8243, en route from Baku to the Chechen capital Grozny, crash-landed on Wednesday near Aktau in Kazakhstan after diverting from southern Russia, where Ukrainian drones were reported to be attacking several cities. At least 38 people were killed.
Four sources with knowledge of the preliminary findings of Azerbaijan’s investigation told reporters on Thursday that Russian air defences had mistakenly shot the airliner down. Passengers said they heard a loud bang outside the plane.
Putin called President Ilham Aliyev and “apologised for the tragic incident that occurred in Russian airspace and once again expressed his deep and sincere condolences to the families of the victims and wished a speedy recovery to the injured,” the Kremlin said.
“At that time, Grozny, Mozdok and Vladikavkaz were being attacked by Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles, and Russian air defence systems repelled these attacks.”