Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said on Sunday that the passenger plane that crashed in Kazakhstan killing 38 people had been damaged due to shooting from the ground in Russia, Azerbaijan state television reported.

Aliyev said he regretted that “some circles” in Russia had tried to hush up the truth about the crash of the Azerbaijan Airlines planes by sowing false narratives about the causes of the crash.

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