Russian president: AZAL plane crash linked to multiple factors

During a meeting with his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev, Russian President Vladimir Putin outlined a number of factors that led to the crash of the AZAL aircraft, according to Report.

The head of state said: "The first factor is that a Ukrainian drone was present in the airspace. We were tracking three drones that had crossed into Russian Federation territory overnight on the day of the tragedy. The second reason involves technical malfunctions in Russia"s air defense system itself."

According to him, the two missiles that were launched did not directly strike the aircraft - if they had, the plane would have crashed immediately.

He emphasized that the damage was not caused by the warhead fragments themselves but most likely by debris from the missiles.