Putin tells Azerbaijan’s Aliyev that Russia will provide ‘compensation’ for the deadly crash caused by its air defences.
Published On 9 Oct 2025
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has told his Azerbaijani counterpart that Moscow will compensate Azerbaijan for its part in accidentally downing an Azerbaijani passenger plane last year, which had damaged relations between the two countries.
The Russian leader made the commitment on Thursday while meeting with Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, 10 months after the Azerbaijani Airlines crash that killed 38 of the 67 people on board and strained ties between the neighbours.
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Azerbaijani authorities had said the jet, en route from Baku to the Chechen capital Grozny, on December 25, 2024, was mistakenly hit by Russian air defence fire. The pilots then attempted an emergency landing in western Kazakhstan, but the plane crashed near Aktau, across the Caspian Sea.
Baku authorities also accused Moscow of denying the distressed aircraft permission to land in Russian territory, forcing the failed landing attempt in Kazakhstan.
Putin apologised for the “tragic incident” at the time but did not directly take responsibility on Russia’s behalf.
On Thursday, however, he acknowledged Russia’s role more explicitly, saying Russian air defence missiles had detonated several metres from the plane after Ukrainian drones entered Russian airspace.
He said Russia would provide Azerbaijan with appropriate compensation and ensure an “objective assessment” of the incident.
“Of course, everything that is required in such tragic cases will be done by the Russian side on compensation and a legal assessment of all official things will be given,” Putin told Aliyev in their first face-to-face meeting in a year. “It is our duty, I repeat once again … to give an objective assessment of everything that happened and to identify the true causes.”
Aliyev thanked Putin for monitoring the progress of an investigation into the deadly incident. “I would like to express my gratitude once again for the fact that you deemed it necessary to highlight this issue at our meeting,” Aliyev told the Russian president.
The jet crash had contributed to months of strained relations between the two former Soviet Republics.
But on Thursday, Putin described Baku as a “reliable” ally with which Moscow is “constantly working on security and defence”.
