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.

Vladimir Putin has apologised for the Azerbaijan Airlines crash but stopped short of accepting responsibility for what he described as a “tragic incident”.

Russian President Vladimir Putin apologized to the President of Azerbaijan for the crash of the civilian airliner that killed 38 people, the Kremlin said Saturday, stopping short of admitting responsibility.