{"id":485882,"date":"2025-10-09T14:42:16","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T14:42:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/485882\/"},"modified":"2025-10-09T14:42:16","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T14:42:16","slug":"azerbaijan-airlines-plane-crash-putin-admits-russias-role-in-incident-that-killed-38","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/485882\/","title":{"rendered":"Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash: Putin admits Russia\u2019s role in incident that killed 38"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Your support helps us to tell the story<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-1uza6dc-0 jEZjIj\">From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it&#8217;s investigating the financials of Elon Musk&#8217;s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, &#8216;The A Word&#8217;, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-1uza6dc-0 jEZjIj\">At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-1uza6dc-0 jEZjIj\">The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.<\/p>\n<p><strong class=\"sc-1uza6dc-1 gunhQQ\">Your support makes all the difference.<\/strong>Read more<\/p>\n<p>Russian President Vladimir Putin has admitted that his country\u2019s air defences were responsible for shooting down an Azerbaijan Airlines plane in December.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/travel\/news-and-advice\/plane-crash-azerbaijan-airlines-kazakhstan-russia-b2671012.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The crash on Christmas Day<\/a> killed 38 of the 67 people on board.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Putin made the statement at a meeting with Azerbaijan\u2019s President Ilham Aliev in Tajikistan\u2019s capital of Dushanbe on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>Both men are attending a summit of the former <a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/topic\/soviet\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Soviet<\/a> nations.<\/p>\n<p>Video footage taken on Thursday showed Mr Putin and Mr Aliyev shaking hands and smiling before the meeting, where the Russian leader spoke about the crash.<\/p>\n<p>The passenger jet was on a flight from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/topic\/baku\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Baku<\/a> to Grozny, the regional capital of the Russian republic of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/topic\/chechnya\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Chechnya<\/a>, when it was struck.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Azerbaijan_Russia_58948.jpg\"  loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"The Azerbaijan Airlines plane after crashing in Kazakhstan\" class=\"sc-1mc30lb-0 ggpMaE\"\/>The Azerbaijan Airlines plane after crashing in Kazakhstan (The Administration of Mangystau Region)<\/p>\n<p>Azerbaijani authorities said the jet was accidentally hit by fire from Russian air defences, then tried to land in western Kazakhstan when it crashed.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Putin earlier apologised to Mr Aliyev for what he called a \u201ctragic incident\u201d, but stopped short of acknowledging responsibility. <\/p>\n<p>Mr Aliyev, meanwhile, criticised <a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/topic\/moscow\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Moscow<\/a> for trying to \u201chush up\u201d the incident.<\/p>\n<p>On Thursday, Mr Putin said Russia would offer compensation to those affected.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOf 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,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is our duty, I repeat once again &#8230; to give an objective assessment of everything that happened and to identify the true causes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/travel\/news-and-advice\/azerbeijan-airlines-plane-crash-investigation-b2692554.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">A preliminary report published on a Kazakh government website after the crash<\/a> said that there was damage to the plane, including on its stabilisers, hydraulics and trim systems.<\/p>\n<p>Also included were photographs showing that the port side of the tail section had numerous punctures, while other pictures showed fragments that it described as \u201cforeign metal objects\u201d removed from the left stabiliser and hydraulic system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":485883,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7655],"tags":[332],"class_list":{"0":"post-485882","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-russia","8":"tag-russia"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115344739206965767","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=485882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485882\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/485883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=485882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=485882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=485882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}