Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev alleged on Sunday that last week’s passenger plane crash, which killed 38 people, was caused by ground fire in

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said on Sunday (local time) that a passenger plane that crashed last week, killing 38 people, had been damaged by shooting from the ground in Russia, and he said some in Russia had lied about the cause of the disaster.

President Vladimir Putin on Saturday apologised to Azerbaijan’s leader for what the Kremlin called a “tragic incident” over Russia in which an Azerbaijan Airlines plane crashed after Russian air defences were fired against Ukrainian drones.

Russians who reviewed the transcript of the crew's conversations from the Baku-Grozny flight themselves admit that the air crash was caused by their air defense systems (ADS), according to Andriy Kovalenko,

The coordinator for Strategic Communications of the US administration, John Kirby, said that the Azerbaijan Airlines plane flying from Baku to Grozny could have been shot down by the Russian air defense.

An Azerbaijan Airlines flight travelling from Baku to Grozny has crashed in Kazakhstan with nearly 70 passengers onboard. Several survivors are in a critical condition. Source: Radio Liberty's Kazakhstan service;

NATO spokesman Farah Dahlalla expressed condolences over the crash of the Azerbaijan Airlines plane near the Kazakh city of Aktau and called for a comprehensive investigation.

"No one claims that it was done on purpose," an Azerbaijan official told Reuters. They added their government "expects the Russian side to confess."

Experts say evidence in the Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash in Kazakhstan points to a possible midair explosion, not an encounter with a flock of birds.

An Azerbaijan Airlines flight to the southern Russian town of Mineralnie Vody turned back to Baku on Friday after being told a chunk of airspace in southern Russia had been closed, Russia's TASS news agency reported.