After almost a year #Putin personally admitted that it was #Russia air defense that shot down the #Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8243. But even that he couldn’t admit honestly, and instead had to come up with lies and muddying the waters:

The reason lies in technical malfunctions in Russia’s air defence system itself. The two missiles that were launched did not hit the aircraft directly; if they had, it would have crashed on the spot. Instead, they exploded several metres away, perhaps 10 metres or so. Perhaps this was a self-destruction mechanism.

This is of course bullshit - the missiles exploded hitting the aircraft tail with shrapnels as expected, but it was a relatively small rocket for the “Pantsir-S1” system with a 20 kg warhead rather than a big “Buk” rocket (70 kg) as the one they used to shoot down the #MH17 flight. That saved the #AZAL8243 flight allowing it to fly in emergency mode and save at least part of the passengers. Putin also did not explain why none of the Russian airports nearby accepted the flight and instead it had to fly to Kazakhstan over the Caspian Sea.

Source: https://www.rbc.ru/politics/09/10/2025/68e79f5b9a794705c33e8377 (in Russian)