The Kremlin leader’s apology, made during a call with his Azerbaijani counterpart, Ilham Aliyev, is likely to tamp down anger that had been growing over the crash of the Azerbaijan Airlines plane this week. The preliminary results of an investigation ...

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.