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.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has apologized to his Azerbaijani counterpart for what he called a “tragic incident” following the crash of an Azerbaijani airliner in Kazakhstan that killed 38 people.

The Kremlin has said that the Russian president "apologized for the tragic incident" and expressed his "deep and sincere condolences" to the victims' families.