Crashed Azerbaijan Airlines plane was ‘shot at from the ground’, country’s president says
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A plane which crashed killing 38 people on Christmas Day was shot at from the ground by Russia, the president of Azerbaijan said. Ilham Aliyev said today that he regretted that ‘some circles’ in Russia had tried to hush up the truth by sowing false narratives about what caused the Azerbaijan Airlines plane to crash.
![[A drone view shows the crash site of an Azerbaijan Airlines passenger plane near the city of Aktau, Kazakhstan December 25.]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/SEI_234207476-9aed.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=646)
“We can say with complete clarity that the plane was shot down by Russia,’ Azerbaijani state television reported him saying. ‘We are not saying that it was done intentionally, but it was done.’. The passenger plane was reportedly refused permission to land in Russia and diverted to Kazakhstan, where it crashed, killing more than half of the 67 people on board.
![[The wreckage of the crashed Azerbaijan Airlines plane in Kazakhstan.]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/SEI_234212448-0f91.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=646)
Mr Aliyev said the aircraft was hit by fire from the ground and rendered uncontrollable by electronic warfare, adding that he was ‘upset and surprised’ by versions of events put forward by Russian officials. ‘Unfortunately, for the first three days we heard nothing from Russia except delirious versions,’ he said.
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video. Up Next. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin yesterday apologised to Aliyev for the ‘tragic incident’ and acknowledged that Russian air defences had been firing in the vicinity of Grozny in Chechnya at the time the plane passed through the area.
But he stopped short of admitting Russian responsibility for the crash. It came days before South Korea’s deadliest aviation disaster, in which nearly all on board a passenger plane carrying 181 people were killed after a suspected bird strke as it came in to land.
