After it was confirmed that a Russian air-defence missile shot the Azerbaijan Airlines plane that crashed in Kazakhstan, Russian President Vladimir Putin apologised to Azerbaijan’s president for the incident. As per reports, Putin apologised to Ilham Aliyev “for a tragic incident” in Russian airspace involving an Azerbaijan Airlines passenger plane.
According to the Kremlin, Putin made and call to his Azerbaijan counterpart and issued a formal apology. However, the Russian president didn’t admit that a Russian missile hit the plane and only mentioned a tragic incident in Russian airspace.
“President Vladimir Putin 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 said in a statement. It added that the plane had repeatedly attempted to land at the airport in Grozny.
“At that time, Grozny, Mozdok and Vladikavkaz were being attacked by Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles, and Russian air defence systems repelled these attacks,” the statement added, explaining the circumstances behind the incident of shooting of the passenger plane mistakenly by its air-defence system.
Azerbaijan Airlines Flight J28432 was flying from Baku in Azerbaijan to Grozny in Russia’s Chechnya, but it was diverted from Grozny for unknown reasons and attempted to make an emergency landing at Aktau in western Kazakhstan on December 25, 2024. But the plane crashed near the airport, killing 38 of 67 people on the plane.
Soon after the crash, it was claimed by several sources including Azerbaijan and the USA that it was hit by a Russian missile, and shrapnel damage was seen on the aircraft, including its vertical stabilizer. Sources had said that at the time of the incident, the Russian air defence system was targeting Ukrainian drones over Grozny. It was also said that the missile that hit the passenger aircraft was fired from a Pantsir-S air defence system.
Now it has been known that the plane was hit in Russian airspace over Grozny, after which it attempted to land at Aktau in Kazakhstan. However, due to the damage from the missile hit, it crashed before reaching the airport.
It has also been revealed that before the crash, flight J28432 hovered over Aktau and its altitude moved up and down during this period. The Embraer ERJ-190 aircraft also faced GPS jamming during the period.
It has been concluded by experts that the Azerbaijan Airlines aircraft was hit by a Russian missile by mistake while targeting Ukrainian drones.
