Sergei Karpukhin / POOL / EPA
Russian President Vladimir Putin
Russian President Vladimir Putin admitted that Russian air defense was in action on Wednesday when an Azerbaijan Airlines plane attempted to land; and apologized to his Azerbaijani counterpart for the tragedy that killed 38 people.
Vladimir Putin admitted, this Saturday, in a telephone conversation with his Azerbaijani counterpart, Ilham Alievthat Russian air defense was operating at the time of the Azerbaijani plane crash, this Wednesday.
According to an official statement from the Kremlin, cited by Agence France-Press (AFP), Putin stated that “the Azerbaijani commercial plane repeatedly tried to land at Grozny airport”, at the same time that the region was being attacked by Ukrainian drones. The Russian president admitted that Russian defense planes “repelled these attacks”.
The Russian President apologized to his Azerbaijani counterpart for what he called “tragic incident” following the Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash in Kazakhstan, which resulted in the majority being Azeri, although there were also Russians and Kazakhs, according to the Kazinform news agency.
Apologies without admitting guilt
Despite having apologized, Vladimir Putin did not admitat any time, that the plane was hit by these defenses.
The plane was flying from the capital of Azerbaijan, Baku, to Grozny, the regional capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya, on Wednesday, when it turned towards Kazakhstan and crashed while trying to land.
On Friday, a U.S. official and an Azerbaijani minister made separate statements blaming the accident on a .
On Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had already called for a full investigation into the circumstances of the plane crash in Kazakhstan and asked for international pressure to clarify the circumstances of the accident in which 29 people survived.
Azerbaijan Airlines revealed that the plane suffered “external physical and technical interference”, citing the preliminary results of the investigation into the disaster.
