Azerbaijan plane crash 'tragic incident': Putin apologises

Moscow: Calling the Azerbaijani airliner crash in Kazakhstan a “tragic incident”, Russian President Vladimir Putin apologised to the Azerbaijan president on Saturday. However, he did not acknowledge that Russian defence was responsible for the crash that killed 38 people, the Associated Press reported.

Putin's apology came amid mounting allegations that the plane had been shot down by Russian air defences attempting to deflect a Ukrainian drone strike near Grozny, the regional capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya.

An official Kremlin statement issued on Saturday said that air defence systems were firing near Grozny airport as the airliner “repeatedly” attempted to land there on Wednesday. It did not explicitly say one of these hit the plane.

The statement said Putin apologised to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev “for the fact that the tragic incident occurred in Russian airspace.” The readout said Russia has launched a criminal probe into the incident, and Azerbaijani state prosecutors have arrived in Grozny to participate. The Kremlin also said that “relevant services” from Russia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan are jointly investigating the crash site near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan.

The plane was flying from Azerbaijan's capital, Baku, to Grozny when it turned toward Kazakhstan, hundreds of kilometres across the Caspian Sea from its intended destination, and crashed while making an attempt to land. There were 29 survivors.

According to a readout of the call provided by Aliyev's press office, the Azerbaijani President told Putin that the plane was subject to "external physical and technical interference," although he also stopped short of blaming Russian air defences.

U.S. authorities suggested on Friday that Russian air defence systems may have played a role in the tragic crash. A surviving passenger told Reuters that at least one loud bang was heard before the flight crashed. Footage circulating online shows large holes in the aircraft's body, further supporting this theory. The Wall Street Journal and other sources have noted that the incident occurred near an area of heightened Ukrainian drone activity, with Grozny, a heavily defended city, being a key target in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict.