Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday formally admitted for the first time that the country's air defences were responsible for shooting down an Azerbaijani airliner last December, an incident that killed 38 people, reports Associated Press.
Putin made the statement during a meeting with Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, on the sidelines of a summit of former Soviet nations.
The Azerbaijan Airlines passenger jet crashed on December 25, 2024, after being struck while on a flight from Baku to Grozny, the regional capital of Russia’s Chechnya republic.
Azerbaijani authorities previously asserted the jet was accidentally hit by Russian air defences and crashed while attempting an emergency landing in western Kazakhstan, killing 38 of the 67 people on board.
The Russian president has previously apologised to Aliyev for what he called a “tragic incident,” but had stopped short of acknowledging official responsibility until his remarks on Thursday.
Aliyev had earlier criticised Moscow for attempting to “hush up” the incident.
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