An Azerbaijani passenger plane was damaged by gunfire from the ground, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said.
He said the Azerbaijani passenger plane was not intentionally shot down in Russian airspace, Azerbaijani state television reported.
Aliyev added that the shots were fired from the ground in Russia.
He said Russia should punish those responsible and pay compensation to the victims of the crash in the city of Aktau, Kazakhstan.
Aliyev stressed that the fact that the plane’s fuselage had holes ruled out a collision with a flock of birds as a possible cause of the air disaster.
“The rear part of the plane was badly damaged by gunfire from the ground,” he said.
He said the truth about what happened would be known when the black boxes were opened.
“The facts are that an Azerbaijani civilian plane suffered external damage while flying over Russian territory, near the city of Grozny,” Aliyev said, adding that the plane was likely hit by electronic warfare systems.
He stressed that Russia should punish those responsible for the accident and pay compensation to the Azerbaijani government, the victims and the plane’s crew.
Aliyev confirmed that Russia had already apologized for the accident.
Russian President Vladimir Putin apologized to Aliyev yesterday for the “tragic incident” that occurred over Russian territory, in which an Azerbaijan Airlines plane crashed after Russian air defenses fired on Ukrainian drones.
An Embraer 190 aircraft operated by Azerbaijan Airlines, flying from Baku to the Russian city of Grozny, crashed on the morning of December 25 near the city of Aktau in western Kazakhstan.
38 people died in the accident.
