Breaking: Russia Apologises Over Azerbaijan Airline Tragedy

Russia has apologised to Azerbaijan over what it Saturday described as the “tragic accident” that happened over the Azerbaijan Airlines passenger aircraft that crashed on Wednesday.

GWG.ng reports that the apology was tendered when Russia’s Vladimir Putin spoke to Ilham Aliyev, the president of Azerbaijan in a private telephone call according to sources familiar with the telephone discussion.

Putin, however, did not admit to responsibility for the shooting down of the passenger aircraft which other intelligence sources say was hit by missiles supposedly fired by Russian defence. The passenger aircraft was supposedly mistaken to be a drone from Ukraine.

Flight J2-8243 crashed on Wednesday in a ball of fire near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan after diverting from southern Russia where Ukrainian drones were reported to be attacking several cities. At least 38 people were killed while 29 survived.

“(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 was noted in the conversation that the Azerbaijani passenger aircraft, which was travelling according to its schedule, repeatedly tried to land at Grozny airport. At that time, Grozny, Mozdok and Vladikavkaz were being attacked by Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles, and Russian air defense systems repelled these attacks,” the Kremlin said underscoring Russia’s position in clearing issues with Azerbaijan.

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