Azerbaijan Airlines crash: Putin apologizes for Russian fire

President Ilham Aliyev confirmed that the Azerbaijan Airlines plane was damaged as a result of ground fire. This information confirms earlier unofficial media reports.

President Aliyev stated that the plane was fired upon from Russian territory, near Grozny, causing the pilots to almost lose control. "We also know that the plane fell victim to electronic warfare devices," said the Azerbaijani leader, quoted by APA.

He added that the shooting was not intentional.

"However, we will only know all the details after opening the black boxes. Many questions remain unanswered today, but they will be clarified," Aliyev emphasized.

The Azerbaijan Airlines plane was flying from the capital of Azerbaijan, Baku, to Grozny in Chechnya in the southern Russian Federation on Wednesday when it veered off course and crashed in Kazakhstan. Most passengers on the Embraer-190 were Azerbaijani citizens. On board were also 16 Russians and several citizens of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

Vladimir Putin apologized in a phone call to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev for the "tragic incident" involving the Azerbaijani passenger plane that crashed in Kazakhstan. The Embraer-190 was hit by Russian air defense. The crash killed 38 people, with 29 survivors.

Putin offered apologies "for the fact that the tragic incident occurred in Russian airspace," according to a statement published on Saturday on the Kremlin's website.

In a conversation initiated by the Russian side, Putin noted that the plane repeatedly tried to land at the airport in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya. At that time, cities in the Russian Caucasus "were being attacked by Ukrainian combat drones and Russian air defense was repelling these attacks."

The statement does not indicate that Putin directly admitted that it was a Russian missile that hit the Azerbaijani plane.