Azerbaijan demanded on Sunday that Russia admit guilt for downing its passenger plane, punish those responsible, and pay compensation.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said on Sunday (local time) that a passenger plane that crashed last week, killing 38 people, had been damaged by shooting from the ground in Russia, and he said some in Russia had lied about the cause of the disaster.

President Vladimir Putin on Saturday apologised to Azerbaijan’s leader for what the Kremlin called a “tragic incident” over Russia in which an Azerbaijan Airlines plane crashed after Russian air defences were fired against Ukrainian drones.

Russians who reviewed the transcript of the crew's conversations from the Baku-Grozny flight themselves admit that the air crash was caused by their air defense systems (ADS), according to Andriy Kovalenko,

The statement said Putin apologized to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev “for the fact that the tragic incident occurred in Russian airspace.”

Russia shot at an Azerbaijan Airlines passenger plane “by accident” on Dec. 25, leading to the aircraft’s crash, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev told state TV on Sunday.

Russia won't say if it mistakenly downed an Azerbaijani plane on Christmas. But it acknowledges the crash came amid a Ukrainian drone attack in its republic of Chechnya.

Russian President Vladimir Putin admitted on Saturday that Russia’s air defense systems were active when Azerbaijan Airlines flight J2-8243 attempted to land in Grozny, Chechnya on Wednesday.