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BAKU, Azerbaijan — An Azerbaijani passenger plane that crashed in December after being diverted from Russia to Kazakhstan was hit by a Russian Pantsir-S air defense system, an Azerbaijani government source told Reuters on Tuesday.
Thirty-eight people were killed when the Azerbaijan Airlines passenger plane crashed on Dec. 25 near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan after rerouting across the Caspian Sea from southern Russia.
"The Azerbaijani side possesses a fragment of a Pantsir-S missile, which was extracted from the aircraft and identified through international expertise," the source said.
Passengers and crew who survived the crash told Azerbaijani media that they heard loud noises on the aircraft as it was circling over Grozny, its original destination in southern Russia.
Since Russia sent thousands of troops into Ukraine in 2022, airlines have flown around Ukraine, and Russia has closed major airports in southwestern Russia.
On Dec. 28, 2024, Russian President Vladimir Putin apologized to his Azerbaijani counterpart for what he called a "tragic incident" regarding the crash, but he stopped short of acknowledging that Moscow was responsible.
