The Russian president is currently in the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, for a summit of former Soviet republics, where he met with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. The Russian president has pledged to punish those responsible and compensate the victims' families.

As previously reported, the plane was en route from Baku to Grozny on December 25, 2024, and crashed near the Kazakh city of Aktau on the Caspian Sea, killing 38 people. A few days after the accident, the Azerbaijani president said that Russia was held responsible for the tragedy. Russian President Vladimir Putin later apologized to Ilham Aliyev, the President of Azerbaijan, for the"tragic incident." In the summer of 2025, the Azerbaijani president announced that his country would sue Russia in international courts over the downing of Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8243.