Russian President Vladimir Putin has apologized to his Azerbaijani counterpart for what he called a “tragic incident” following the crash of an Azerbaijani airliner in Kazakhstan that killed 38 people

Putin did admit that Russian air defences were at work when the passenger plane tried to land in Grozny before crashing, and the Kremlin said Putin apologised to Azerbaijani leader Ilham Aliyev over the "tragic incident" in a phone call, but did not say Russian air defence shot the plane.

Four sources with knowledge of the preliminary findings of Azerbaijan's investigation told Reuters that Russian air defences mistakenly shot it down.