Azeri President Ilham Aliyev says Vladimir Putin’s apology isn’t enough, in a confrontation that shows Moscow’s waning influence over former Soviet territories.

Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev said on Sunday that the Azerbaijani airliner that crashed in Kazakhstan on Wednesday, killing 38 people, was shot down by Russia, albeit unintentionally. Aliyev told Azerbaijani state television that the aircraft was ...

Ilham Aliyev said the jet was not shot down deliberately, but accused Russia of trying to ‘hush up’ the issue for several days.

Azerbaijan Airlines flight J2-8243 caught fire as it tried to make an emergency landing in Aktau, southwestern Kazakhstan, on Wednesday. It was traveling from the Azeri capital Baku to Grozny, the capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya.

Russia and Kazakhstan have tried to calm speculation about the cause of the Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash, following claims that it was shot down by Russian air defence systems. On Thursday, Moscow urged calm as its foreign minister said it would be wrong to draw conclusions before an investigation into the crash was complete.

Flight records for the plane made by Brazil's Embraer that crashed last week in Kazakhstan are headed to the South American country so the data can be extracted, the Brazilian Air Force said in a statement on Monday.

The probe into the Azerbaijan Airlines crash in Kazakhstan is examining the conduct of air traffic controllers after the aircraft encountered difficulty, a source said.

Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev has accused Russia of accidentally shooting down an airliner on Christmas Day in a disaster that killed 38 people, and covering up the cause.

"We can clearly say today that the plane was shot down by Russia," President Ilham Aliyev said in a televised statement