Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev said Russia is behind the Christmas Day crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines plane in Kazakhstan, which killed 38 of the 67 people aboard. The motives of the incident remain unclear.

Russia's leader apologises over the downing of an Azerbaijani plane in Russian airspace - without directly taking blame.

Four sources with knowledge of the preliminary findings of Azerbaijan's investigation told Reuters that Russian air defences mistakenly shot it down.