Putin apologized for the “tragic incident” in Russian airspace, but the Kremlin did not take responsibility for downing the Azerbaijan Airlines flight.

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 said Saturday that Russia’s air defense systems were active when an Azerbaijan Airlines flight attempted to land in Grozny, Chechnya on Wednesday.