President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Saturday apologized for the crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines plane this past week, breaking the Kremlin’s three-day silence on the accident that claimed the lives of 38 people. He did not explicitly acknowledge Russia’s responsibility for the crash.
The Kremlin said in a statement that Mr. Putin “offered his apologies” for the crash in a phone call to his Azerbaijani counterpart, Ilham Aliyev. Mr. Putin told Mr. Aliyev “that the tragic incident took place in Russian airspace.” The phone call was initiated by the Russian leader, the Kremlin said.
Mr. Putin said that as the plane approached its scheduled destination of Grozny, in southern Russia, Russian air defenses had begun to repulse an attack by Ukrainian drones on the Grozny airport and others nearby, according to the statement. The statement stopped short of attributing the crash to a Russian air-defense missile, a cause that investigators in Azerbaijan have focused on.
Azerbaijan’s presidential office confirmed that Mr. Putin offered apologies to Mr. Aliev, but went further than the Kremlin in blaming Russian air defenses.
“President Ilham Aliyev emphasized that the Azerbaijan Airlines passenger plane encountered external physical and technical interference while in Russian airspace, resulting in a complete loss of control,” Azerbaijan’s presidential office said in a statement.
The plane was traveling from Baku, Azerbaijan, to Grozny, but was diverted from its path. It eventually crashed in Kazakhstan after crossing the Caspian Sea. More than half of people on board were Azerbaijani citizens. Some of the victims were Russians and Kazakhs.
Mr. Putin said Russia has opened a criminal investigation into the crash. He added that Azerbaijani investigators were on the ground in Grozny, and that officials from Russia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan were present at the site of the crash in Aktau, Kazakhstan.
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