Russian President Vladimir Putin has apologized to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev for the tragic incident that caused the crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines passenger plane in Kazakhstan on December 25.
The Kremlin statement said that as the plane attempted to land in Grozny, Ukrainian drones were attacking Russia and Russian air defense forces repelled the attacks.
"During this time, Grozny, Mozdok and Vladikavkaz were attacked by Ukrainian commando drones and Russian air defenses repelled these attacks," the statement said.
However, Vladimir Putin did not mention the fact that Russian air defenses shot down the plane, in which 42 people died while 25 others survived.
The mistaken shooting down of the plane by the Russian air defense system in Chechnya was strongly supported by the US, as well as Ukraine, from the very beginning.