Russian President Vladimir Putin apologized Saturday to his Azerbaijani counterpart for what he called a “sad incident” after the incident Azerbaijani plane crash in Kazakhstan that killed 38 people.
The plane was flying on Wednesday from the capital of Azerbaijan in Baku to Grozny, the regional capital of the Russian Republic in Chechnya, when it turned to Kazakhstan and crashed while trying to land. 29 people survived.
In an official statement on Saturday, the Kremlin said that air defense systems were firing near Grozny on Wednesday due to a drone strike in Ukraine, but stopped short of saying that one of them hit the plane.
On Friday, a US official and an Azerbaijani minister made separate statements blaming the accident on a foreign weapon.
