Putin wriggled out in front of Aliyev over the downed plane, shifting the blame onto "Ukrainian drones" and "air-defence technical failures"

"The investigation is coming to an end, and now one can generally speak about the causes of this tragedy, this catastrophe. It is connected with several circumstances. The first is that there was a Ukrainian drone in the sky. We had three such drones in operation, which crossed the Russian border at night on the day of the tragedy. The second reason is technical failures of Russia’s own air-defence system", - said the russian dictator putin on October 9 at a meeting in Dushanbe with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, apologizing for the Azerbaijani plane shot down in December 2024.

Putin, quoted on the official kremlin website, said in a roundabout way that earlier, "in our first phone conversation, I not only apologized for the fact that the tragedy occurred in Russian airspace, but also expressed my deepest condolences to the families of the deceased, and I would like to repeat all of that.

Putin plainly tried to wiggle free, saying that "the two missiles that were launched did not hit the plane directly — if that had happened, it would have crashed on the spot — but exploded — perhaps it was self-destruction — a few meters away, somewhere around 10 meters".

"And so the hit occurred, but primarily not by the lethal elements of the warheads, but most likely by fragments of the missiles themselves. That is why the pilot perceived it as a collision with a flock of birds, which he reported to the Russian controllers, and all of this is recorded in the so-called 'black boxes'. He was also offered — and this is also in the 'black boxes', clearly audible — to land in Makhachkala, but he decided to return to the home-base airport, and then to Kazakhstan", - putin cynically attempted to exonerate the russian military.