Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev talk during their meeting on the sidelines of the Russia-Central Asia summit in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, on Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025. (Grigory Sysoyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday formally acknowledged that the December 2024 crash of Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8243, which claimed 38 lives, was caused by missiles launched from the Russian territory.Putin met Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev on the sidelines of the 2nd Russia–Central Asia Summit in Dushanbe, Tajikistan. According to Russia’s state-owned Sputnik news agency, Putin told his counterpart that the incident occurred when Russian missiles tracking Ukrainian drones detonated just a few meters from the civilian aircraft.“Russia was tracking three Ukrainian drones that crossed its border. Two air-defence missiles launched by Russia did not directly hit the AZAL aircraft — they detonated a few meters away. The plane was most likely damaged by fragments, not by the missiles’ warheads themselves,” Sputnik quoted Putin as saying.Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a military conflict since February 24, 2022.On December 25, 2024, the flight — carrying 67 people, including 62 passengers, two pilots, and three cabin crew — took off from Baku, Azerbaijan’s capital, bound for Grozny in Russia. It crashed in Akatu, Kazakhstan, killing 35 passengers, both pilots, and one flight attendant.Three days later, on December 28, Putin spoke to Aliyev by phone and “apologised” for the incident. At the time, he said Russian air defence systems had been active to counter Ukrainian drones but stopped short of explicitly acknowledging that Russian missiles were responsible for downing the aircraft.