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.

Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8243 was scheduled to travel from Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, to Grozny, a city in the Russian region of Chechnya, on Wednesday, but was diverted and ultimately crashed on the other side of the Caspian Sea, less than two miles from the airport in Aktau, Kazakhstan.