President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia told the Azerbaijani leader, Ilham Aliyev, in a phone call, “that the tragic incident took place in Russian airspace.”

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 apologized for the plane crash in Russian air space on Christmas Day that left 38 people dead in a statement that said Russia was targeting Ukrainian drones over the plane’s planned destination at the time, but stopped short of taking responsibility.