Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged that Russian air defenses shot down an Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer 190 passenger jet in December 2024. This was the first time Russia has publicly accepted blame for the crash that killed 38 people. The Russian president made the admission during a meeting with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in Dushanbe on Thursday during a regional summit in Tajikistan.

On Dec. 25, Flight 8432 was en route from Baku to Grozny when it went down near Kazakhstan’s Aktau Airport. Azerbaijani sources maintained from the beginning that the aircraft was struck by a Russian surface-to-air missile fired amid drone activity over Grozny.

Following the incident, Azerbaijan accused Moscow of obstructing the investigation and refusing the aircraft’s requests for an em

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