Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia’s air defences were responsible for shooting down an Azerbaijani airliner in December that killed 38 people in his first admission of blame for the crash.
Putin made the statement at a meeting with Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev in Tajikistan’s capital of Dushanbe on Thursday, where both are attending a summit of the former Soviet nations.
The Azerbaijan Airlines passenger jet crashed on December 25, 2024, while on a flight from Baku to Grozny, the regional capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya.
Azerbaijani authorities said the passenger jet was accidentally hit by fire from Russian air defences. The plane tried to land in western Kazakhstan, where it crashed, killing 38 of 67 people aboard.
Putin has apologised to Aliyev for what he called a “tragic incident” but stopped short of acknowledging responsibility. Aliyev, meanwhile, criticised Moscow for trying to “hush up” the incident.
Putin said that Russia is providing every possible assistance to the investigation into the plane crash, noting it will also provide a legal assessment of the actions of all officials in connection with it.
‘Ukrainian drones were the target’
The Russian president also noted that the investigation is nearing completion, going on to link the crash in part to the presence of Ukrainian drones over Russian airspace on the night of the incident.
He cited the second factor for the crash as "technical failures" of his country's air defence system, explaining that the two missiles fired by Moscow at the time did not hit the plane directly but rather exploded several metres from it.
"So the damage occurred, but not primarily from the warheads, but most likely from debris from the missiles themselves," he said.
For his part, Aliyev thanked Putin for personally overseeing the investigation into the crash and expressed that they had "no doubt" that it would resolve everything objectively.
In July, Aliyev said Baku would “apply to international justice” regarding the crash. The Kremlin responded that it would respect Azerbaijan’s decision to seek legal action and “will wait for official verdicts.”
