| Dushanbe – Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that Russia’s air defences were to blame for shooting down an Azerbaijani airline last December that killed 38 people, his first admission of responsibility for the crash. Putin made the statement during meeting with the Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, on the sidelines of summit of former Soviet nations. Putin said on Thursday that the missiles fired by Russia to target a Ukrainian drone exploded near the Azerbaijan Airlines plane flying from Baku as it was preparing to land in Grozny, the regional capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya, on 25 December 2024. Ukrainian drones have regularly struck deep inside Russia. He said: “The Russian side will obviously do everything to provide compensation and give legal assessment to all responsible officials’ action”. The Russian president voiced hope for overcoming the strain between the countries and fully rebuilding the ties. “I hope that our cooperation not only will be restored, but continue in the spirit of our relations, the spirit of our alliance,” he said. Azerbaijani authorities had said the Embraer 190 jet was hit accidentally by Russian fire, then tried to land in western Kazakhstan, where it crashed and killed 38 of 67 people onboard. Days after the crash, Putin apologized to Aliyev for what he called a “tragic incident” but stopped short of acknowledging responsibility. Aliyev, meanwhile, had criticized Moscow for trying to “hush up” the incident. The controversy over the crash has roiled the previously warm ties between Moscow and Baku. Their relations were further destabilized by deaths of ethnic Azerbaijanis rounded up by police in a Russian city in June and a series of arrests of Russians in Azerbaijan. |
Putin admits Russian air defences responsible for Azerbaijani jet crash
