By Man Faulconbridge, Andrew Osborn and Nailia Bagirova
MOSCOW/BAKU (Reuters) -President Vladimir Putin on Saturday apologised to Azerbaijan’s chief for what the Kremlin known as a “tragic incident” over Russia by which an Azerbaijan Airways airplane crashed after Russian air defences had been fired towards Ukrainian drones.
The extraordinarily uncommon publicised apology from Putin was the closest Moscow had come to accepting some blame for Wednesday’s catastrophe, though the Kremlin assertion didn’t say Russia had shot down the airplane, solely noting {that a} legal case had been opened.
Flight J2-8243, en route from Baku to the Chechen capital Grozny, crash-landed on Wednesday close to Aktau in Kazakhstan after diverting from southern Russia, the place Ukrainian drones had been reported to be attacking a number of cities. A minimum of 38 folks had been killed.
4 sources with information of the preliminary findings of Azerbaijan’s investigation informed Reuters on Thursday that Russian air defences had mistakenly shot the airliner down. Passengers stated they heard a loud bang outdoors the airplane.
Putin known as President Ilham Aliyev and “apologised for the tragic incident that occurred in Russian airspace and once again expressed his deep and sincere condolences to the families of the victims and wished a speedy recovery to the injured,” the Kremlin stated.
“At that time, Grozny, Mozdok and Vladikavkaz were being attacked by Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles, and Russian air defence systems repelled these attacks.”
The Kremlin stated “civilian and military specialists” had been being questioned.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy additionally stated he had known as Aliyev to supply condolences, and in his assertion on the X platform demanded that Russia present “clear explanations”.
OBJECTS SMASHED THROUGH AIRPLANE’S FUSELAGE
Azerbaijan for its half stated Aliyev had famous to Putin that the airplane had been “subjected to external physical and technical interference in Russian airspace, resulting in a complete loss of control and redirection to the Kazakh city of Aktau”.
Till Saturday, Russia’s final working day earlier than an extended New 12 months vacation, the Kremlin had stated it was improper to touch upon the incident earlier than official investigations had been concluded.
The Embraer jet had flown from Azerbaijan’s capital Baku to Grozny, in Russia’s southern Chechnya area, the place the incident occurred, after which travelled, badly broken, one other 280 miles (450 km) throughout the Caspian Sea.
Footage shot by passengers earlier than the airplane crashed confirmed oxygen masks down and other people carrying life jackets. Later movies confirmed bloodied and bruised passengers climbing out of the wreckage. There have been 29 survivors.
Baku cited accidents from objects that had penetrated the plane’s fuselage from outdoors and testimonies from survivors as proof of “external physical and technical interference”.
The crash underscored the dangers to civil aviation even when plane are flying lots of of miles from a struggle zone, particularly when Ukraine has deployed drones en masse to attempt to hit again at Russia behind the entrance traces .
Russia makes use of digital jamming to confuse the geolocation and communication programs of Ukrainian drones, which it additionally targets with air defence programs.
In 2020, Iranian Revolutionary Guards mistakenly shot down a Ukrainian airliner, killing all 176 on board.
And in 2014, Malaysian Airways Flight MH17 was shot down over japanese Ukraine, with the lack of 298 passengers and crew, by what Dutch investigators stated was a Russian BUK missile system. Russia denied involvement.
