Kremlin declines to accept responsibility for plane crash

The Kremlin on Thursday declined to say Russian forces accidentally shot at an Azerbaijani plane which crashed last month, despite Baku repeatedly urging it to accept responsibility for the fatal disaster.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has said the Azerbaijani Airlines passenger jet, which crashed in Kazakhstan on December 25, killing 38 people, was shot at "from the ground" over the Russian city of Grozny where it had been due to land.

Russia has said its air defences were working at the time repelling Ukrainian drones but has stopped short of saying it shot at the plane.

Aliyev, a close ally of Moscow, this week repeated that "guilt" lay with Russia and accused it of "concealment" of the real causes.

"We are interested in an absolutely objective and impartial investigation in order to establish the causes of this catastrophe," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday.

"We are waiting for the results of the commission," he added, saying Russian "specialists are giving their full cooperation".

Russian President Vladimir Putin called Aliyev twice since the disaster.

The Kremlin said he had apologised for the fact the incident took place over Russian airspace but its account of the phone calls does not say Putin accepted responsibility.

Aliyev has expressed anger over Moscow's handling of the crash.

He issued fierce criticism and demanded an apology earlier this week, calling on Moscow to punish those responsible for the "criminal" shooting down of the plane.

Aliyev said air defence measures for Grozny - the capital of Russia's Chechnya republic -- were only announced after the plane had been "shot from the ground".

Azerbaijan says the plane was riddled with holes and that preliminary results of its investigation show it was accidentally hit by a Russian air defence missile.

AFP