President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Saturday apologised for the crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines plane earlier this week, breaking the Kremlin’s three-day silence on the accident that claimed the lives of 38 people. He did not explicitly acknowledge Russia’s responsibility for the crash.

Putin “offered his apologies” for the crash in a phone call to his Azerbaijani counterpart, Ilham Aliyev, the Kremlin said in a statement. Putin told Aliyev “that the tragic incident took place in Russian airspace”, according to the statement. The phone call was initiated by the Russian leader, the Kremlin said.

Putin said that as the plane approached its scheduled destination of Grozny, in southern Russia, Russian air defences had begun to repulse an attack by Ukrainian drones on the Grozny airport and others nearby, according to the Kremlin. The statement stopped short of attributing the crash to a Russian air-defence missile, a cause that investigators in Azerbaijan have focused on.

Azerbaijan’s presidential office confirmed that Putin had offered apologies to Aliyev, but suggested that the blame laid with Russian air defences.

“President Ilham Aliyev emphasised that the Azerbaijan Airlines passenger plane encountered external physical and technical interference while in Russian airspace, resulting in a complete loss of control,” Azerbaijan’s presidential office said in a statement. The plane “was able to make an emergency landing solely due to the courage and professionalism of the pilots,” the statement added.

Aliyev called for a thorough investigation and for “ensuring those responsible are held accountable”.

The theory that a Russian missile caused the crash has also received support from aviation experts and US officials.

The Embraer 190 airliner was travelling from Baku, Azerbaijan, to Grozny, but was diverted from its path. It eventually crashed in Aktau, Kazakhstan, after crossing the Caspian Sea. More than half the people on board were Azerbaijani citizens. Seven Russians and six Kazakhs died in the crash.

Putin said Russia had opened a criminal investigation into the crash, according to the Kremlin, and was hosting Azerbaijani investigators in Grozny. The Kremlin’s statement tried to project a united front among the three nations most affected by the crash.

“The relevant agencies of Russia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan are closely cooperating on the site of the catastrophe in the area of the city of Aktau,” the Kremlin statement read.

Aliyev’s more accusatory, strongly worded statement, however, presents the first public crack in the Kremlin’s attempts to control the narrative.

Both Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have long tried to build economic ties to the West and shed the Russian colonial legacy — without antagonising the Kremlin. The two former Soviet states have taken a neutral stance on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, benefiting from growing trade with Russia without directly supporting Kremlin’s war aims.

Still, the Kremlin’s apology without accepting responsibility complicates these countries’ efforts to maintain friendly relations with Russia without appearing weak to their citizens and the world, analysts said.

New York Times News Service