Putin apologizes to Azerbaijan for Christmas plane crash

Russian President Vladimir Putin apologized to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on Saturday, the Kremlin said in a social media statement. Putin initiated the conversation with Aliyev and apologized for what the Kremlin described as an incident in Russian airspace shortly before an Azerbaijan Airlines jet crashed in Kazakhstan on Christmas Day.

What is the incident in question? Four sources with knowledge of Azerbaijani authorities’ preliminary findings about the crash anonymously told Reuters last week that Russian missile defense systems mistakenly shot the plane down. White House National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby said Friday that some early indications were pointing to the possibility that the jet was brought down by Russian air defense systems.

In official statements on Sunday, Azerbaijan’s President Aliyev said that electronic warfare disabled the civilian plane, and fire from the ground damaged it over Russian territory. Aliyev also said that for the first three days after the crash, his office heard nothing from Russia except for what he described as crazy theories about the incident. One early suggestion from the Russian side was that a bird strike may have been to blame.

What happened, exactly? On Christmas Day, the plane was trying to land at Grozny Airport in Russia. But at the time that it was trying to land, Ukrainian drones were attacking Grozny and other nearby locales, the Kremlin said. Russian air defense systems were repelling those drone attacks, the Kremlin explained.

The plane ultimately crashed near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan. The plane carried 67 people, according to Azerbaijan Airlines. Thirty-eight of the passengers reportedly died in the crash. The occupants were primarily Azerbaijani citizens, but some Russians and Kazakhs were also on the plane.

Dig deeper: Read Lauren Canterberry’s report in The Sift about how Russian missiles were assaulting Ukrainian infrastructure on Christmas Day.