The extremely rare publicised apology from Putin was the closest Moscow had come to accepting some blame for Wednesday's disaster, although the Kremlin statement did not say Russia had shot down the plane.

An Azerbaijan Airlines plane flying from Baku to Grozny that crashed near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan was shot down by a Russian Pantsir-S air defence system. Source: Reuters, citing its sources Quote: "One of the Azerbaijani sources familiar with Azerbaijan's investigation into the crash told Reuters that preliminary results showed the plane was struck by a Russian Pantsir-S air defence system.