Putin apologizes for Azerbaijan Airlines crash without saying Russia at fault

Russian President Vladimir Putin apologized to Azerbaijan for the “tragic” downing of an Azerbaijan Airlines plane on Christmas Day, but he stopped short of saying Russia was responsible for the crash.

“Vladimir Putin apologized for the fact that the tragic incident occurred in Russian airspace and once again expressed his deep and sincere condolences to the families of the victims,” the Kremlin said in a statement on Saturday. The apology came in a telephone call with Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, it said.

Putin said the airliner was attempting to land in Grozny amid Ukrainian drone attacks in the area. “Russian air defense systems repelled these attacks,” he added.

The civilian airliner was flying on Wednesday from the Azerbaijani capital Baku to Grozny in Russia’s Chechen Republic. After passengers reported hearing a blast, the plane diverted hundreds of kilometers from its route and crashed near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan, killing 38 people. There were 29 survivors.

The Investigative Committee of Russia has opened a criminal probe into the crash, the Kremlin said. Azerbaijan had already announced it would launch an investigation.

 “The relevant services of Russia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan are closely cooperating at the site of the disaster in the Aktau region,” the Kremlin said in its statement.

Several media reports, including by Reuters, Russian independent news outlet Meduza, and Azerbaijan’s Caliber news agency, claim the passenger jet was damaged by a Russian air defense missile in an area where Moscow has been targeting Ukrainian drones in recent weeks. NATO has called for an investigation into the crash.

American officials “have seen some early indications that would certainly point to the possibility that this jet was brought down by Russian air defense systems,” White House National Security spokesman John Kirby told reporters in Washington on Friday.

If it is confirmed that the plane was downed by Russia, the incident will echo the Malaysia Airlines disaster of 2014 in which a plane flying over the Donbas region of Ukraine was shot down by a Russian missile, killing all 298 people on board. A Dutch court found two Russian agents and a separatist leader guilty of the crime in absentia. 

Gabriel Gavin contributed to this report.

This article is being updated.