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.”

The Kremlin has said that Putin "apologized for the tragic incident" and expressed his "deep and sincere condolences" the the victims' families.