Putin offers "excuse" to Aliyev for downing Azerbaijani plane

On Thursday, October 9, during a meeting with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Russian president Vladimir Putin sought to justify the downing of an Azerbaijani passenger plane en route to Grozny.

The Kremlin leader’s statements were echoed by Russian propagandists.

According to Putin, one of the reasons for the “aviation disaster” involving the AZAL plane was a Ukrainian drone operating in Russian airspace.

“We can now broadly discuss the reasons for this tragedy, this catastrophe. It is tied to several circumstances. The first is that a Ukrainian drone was in the sky — in fact, three such drones crossed the Russian border during the night of the incident,” Putin said, finding what seemed to be a convenient “excuse.”

At the same time, Putin admitted that the passenger plane flying from Baku to Grozny was hit by a Russian air defense system. Yet, even here, he concocted an absurd explanation to downplay the blame.

According to the Kremlin chief, two Russian missiles fired by the air defense system did not directly strike the AZAL plane but detonated a few meters away.

“If that had happened, the plane would have crashed on the spot. The missiles exploded for various reasons a few meters away, roughly ten meters or so,” the Russian president claimed.

As noted by the Azerbaijani outlet Azerbaijani Armed Forces, the absurdity of this explanation lies in the fact that air defense missiles are not designed to directly hit an aerial target but to detonate nearby, destroying it with shrapnel and blast effects that engulf the intended target.

Putin assured that he was informed about the causes of the AZAL plane crash, which he relayed to Aliyev, just two days prior.

As is known, the passenger plane operated by Azerbaijan Airlines, en route to the Chechen capital, crashed in Kazakhstan on December 25, 2024. Footage quickly surfaced online showing the tail section of the plane, riddled with holes characteristic of damage from air defense systems.

That same day, when the Russians shot down the AZAL plane, Azerbaijani analysts suggested it was likely struck by a Russian Pantsir-S1 anti-aircraft missile system.