MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russian President Vladimir Putin told Azerbaijan’s leader that two Russian missiles had detonated beside an Azerbaijan Airlines plane last year after Ukrainian drones entered Russian air space and promised compensation to those affected.
Flight J2-8243, en route from Baku to the Chechen capital Grozny, crash-landed on December 25 near Aktau in Kazakhstan after diverting from southern Russia, where Ukrainian drones were reported to be attacking several targets.
At least 38 people were killed.
Video footage on Thursday showed Putin and Aliyev shaking hands and smiling before a bilateral meeting in Tajikistan at which Putin spoke about the plane crash.
Putin last year issued a rare public apology to Aliyev for what the Kremlin called a “tragic incident” over Russia in which the plane crashed after Russian air defences were deployed against Ukrainian drones.
On Thursday, he went further.
“Of course, everything that is required in such tragic cases will be done by the Russian side on compensation and a legal assessment of all official things will be given,” Putin told Aliyev..
“It is our duty, I repeat once again… to give an objective assessment of everything that happened and to identify the true causes.”
Putin told Aliyev that two Russian air defence missiles had detonated several metres away from the plane after Ukrainian drones entered Russian airspace.
The Embraer jet had flown from Azerbaijan’s capital Baku to Grozny, in Russia’s southern republic of Chechnya, where the incident occurred, and had then travelled, badly damaged, another 280 miles (450 km) across the Caspian Sea.
Aliyev was angry about the crash and has publicly criticised the initial reactions from Moscow which he said sought to cover up the cause of the incident.
(Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Guy Faulconbridge Editing by Andrew Osborn)
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