President Vladimir Putin of Russia has apologized over the tragic downing of an Azerbaijan airliner on Christmas day by Russian anti-aircraft missile.
Reuters reports that President Putin called Azerbaijan leader and apologized for what the Russian leader referred to as a “tragic incident.”
Putin according to the Kremlin “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.”
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“At that time, Grozny, Mozdok and Vladikavkaz were being attacked by Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles, and Russian air defence systems repelled these attacks.”
Despite the apology, however, Putin refused to admit that Russia military forces shutdown the doomed aircraft that left 38 people dead including the pilots and cabin crew.
Flight J2-8243, was en route from Baku to Grozny, the Chechen capital when it was caught up in crossfire as Russian forces waded off several drone and misile attacks from Ukrainian forces.
The already crippled plane eventually crash-landed near Aktau in Kazakhstan after it had diverted from southern Russia.
Sources in Azerbaijan told Reuters that Russian air defences had mistakenly shot down the aircraft with surviving passengers testifying that they had heard loud bangs shortly before the aircraft went down.
Azerbaijan authorities has expressed its frustration over the crash nothing in clear terms that the plane 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.”
On his part, Ukrainian President, Volodymr Zelensky accused Russia of willfully shooting down the airliner and called on Russia “stop spreading disinformation” about the strike.