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 deadly Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8243 crash on Christmas but did not take responsibility for causing it as an investigation continues into the matter.

The Kremlin said Putin had "offered his apologies that the tragic incident had occurred in Russia's airspace."