Russian President Vladimir Putin has apologized to the leader of Azerbaijan after a passenger plane crashed in Kazakhstan for the “tragic incident” that occurred in Russian airspace, the Kremlin said Saturday. The Kremlin did not take responsibility ...

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.