President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that Russia's air defenses were to blame for the downing of an Azerbaijani passenger plane in December, killing 38 people, his first admission of responsibility for the crash in an apparent attempt to ease tensions between the neighbors.

Putin said missiles fired by Russian air defenses to target a Ukrainian drone exploded near the Azerbaijani Airlines plane flying from Baku as it prepared to land in Grozny, the regional capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya, on December 25, 2024. Ukrainian drones have regularly attacked inside Russia.

Speaking at a meeting with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, where the two arrived to attend a summit of former Soviet nations, Putin pledged to punish those responsible and provide compensation to the victims.

Azerbaijani authorities said the plane was accidentally hit by Russian air defense fire, then attempted to land in western Kazakhstan, where it crashed, killing 38 of the 67 people on board.

Days after the crash, Putin apologized to Aliyev for what he called a tragic incident, but stopped short of acknowledging responsibility. Aliyev, for his part, criticized Moscow for trying to hush up the incident.

The controversy over the crash has soured previously warm ties between Moscow and Baku. Relations were further strained by the deaths of ethnic Azerbaijanis detained by police in a Russian city in June and a series of arrests of Russians in Azerbaijan.