On Saturday, Putin said the “tragic incident” occurred when Russian air defense systems shot down Ukrainian drones, and expressed his “deep and sincere condolences to the families of the victims.”
The Russian president admitted that the plane repeatedly tried to land at the Grozny airport in Chechnya.
However, at the time, the cities of Grozny, Mazdok and Vladikavkaz “were attacked by Ukrainian drones, and Russian air defense systems repelled these attacks,” Putin said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Russia should “stop the spread of disinformation” and that the damage to the plane’s fuselage “resembles a missile strike by air defense.”
The Kremlin did not directly admit that the plane was shot down by Russian missiles.
Aliyev said that Baku demanded that Russia “admit its guilt”, punish the guilty and pay compensation to Azerbaijan and the victims of the disaster.
Azerbaijan and Russia are allies. The President of Azerbaijan said: “No one could have thought that in a country friendly to us, our plane would be shot down from the ground.”
His statement was made at a time when Azerbaijan commemorated the pilots and passengers of the downed plane.
Three crew members — captain Igor Kshnyakin, co-pilot Alexander Kalaianinov, and flight attendant Hokuma Aliyev — were awarded outstanding awards for landing the plane in a way that allowed 29 people to survive, even if it resulted in their own deaths.
