Putin apologizes to Azerbaijan over ‘tragic’ plane crash, but stops short of taking responsibility

Russian President Vladimir Putin apologized to the president of Azerbaijan for the crash of the civilian airliner that killed 38 people, the Kremlin said Saturday, stopping short of admitting responsibility.

"Vladimir Putin apologized for the fact that the tragic incident occurred in Russian airspace," the Kremlin said.

The airliner had "repeatedly attempted to land" at the Grozny airport, Putin told Ilham Aliyev, which at the time was being "attacked by Ukrainian combat drones."

Russian air defense systems "repelled these attacks," Putin said.

He did not say if the plane was hit by Russian air defenses but the Kremlin said that an investigation was underway and civilian and military specialists were being interrogated.

The Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash-landed near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan on Christmas day, killing 38 of the 67 people on board.

According to a readout by Aliyev's office, the Azerbaijan president told Putin of the evidence suggesting "external physical and technical interference," specifying that it happened in Russian airspace.

Aliyev mentioned multiple holes in the airplane's fuselage, injuries sustained by passengers and crew "due to foreign particles penetrating the cabin mid-flight," and testimonies from surviving passengers and crew, some of whom had said they felt explosions before the plane went down.

Two U.S. military officials told NBC News on Friday that the plane may have been hit by Russian missiles, saying they had intelligence indicating that Russians may have misidentified the plane and shot it down.

The intelligence suggested that Russians believed the airliner was a drone, partly because of an irregular flight pattern, the officials said.

The Embraer 190 experienced "physical and technical external interference," the carrier said Friday, while the plane was en route from Azerbaijan's capital, Baku, to Grozny, the capital of Russia's Chechnya region.

Russian officials have cautioned against speculating about the cause of the crash, and on Saturday Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia was "waiting on the results of the investigation."

However, the country's aviation ministry, Rosaviatsia, said earlier that the situation around the destination airport, Grozny, was "very complicated," with Ukrainian drones in the vicinity.

Rosaviatsia also said there was a dense fog and no visibility at an altitude of 1,600 feet, and the pilot ultimately chose to divert after two unsuccessful attempts to land at Grozny.