The Russian missile that downed the Azeri civilian jet in December 2024 did not physically hit the plane but exploded nearby, Russian President Vladimir Putin told his Azeri counterpart Ilham Aliyev on Thursday.

Ironically, that is exactly what the Pantsir-S missile is designed to do.

Putin and Aliyev met in person – the first time since the incident – at the Kokhi Somon government residence in Dushanbe during the Moscow-led post-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) Heads of State Council meeting.

On Dec. 25, 2024, Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8243, en route from Baku to Grozny, was severely damaged by shrapnel from a Russian Pantsir missile, after which it crashed attempting an emergency landing in Aktau, Kazakhstan.

The two spoke about the tragedy, which claimed the lives of 38 people, during which Putin once again blamed Ukrainian drones for causing.

“We can now generally discuss the causes of this tragedy. It is connected to several circumstances, the first of which is that there was a Ukrainian drone in the sky,” Putin told Aliyev, according to Russian state media TASS.

He then acknowledged it was partly Russia’s fault for “guiding” the drones into Russian airspace.

“We ‘led’ three such drones that crossed the Russian Federation border on the night of the tragedy,” he said.

Putin then said the missiles exploded around 10 meters (33 feet) away, rather than directly hitting the plane.

“The second reason is technical failures in the Russian air defense system itself. The two missiles that were fired did not directly hit the plane – if that had happened, it would have crashed on the spot – but exploded, perhaps self-destructing, a few meters away, somewhere around 10 meters,” Putin added, according to state media RIA Novosti.

Euronews reported that Russian investigators believed a Pantsir-S1 system was used to down the airplane, with munition database CAT-UXO noting that the missile employs a fragmentation warhead that is initiated by a fuse that has both contact and proximity functions.

It is perfectly plausible, therefore, that rather than missing as Putin contended, the air defense missile did exactly what it was meant to do – detonating in close proximity.

Putin added that the plane had received an offer to land in Russia’s Makhachkala, but the pilots chose their home airport instead.

Putin also told Aliyev that he had personally apologized for the incident multiple times, according to RIA Novosti, and gave an undertaking for Russia to provide compensation for the incident.

Shortly after the crash, Putin apologized for the event having taken place in Russian airspace, but stopped short of admitting that Russian air defense hit the plane.

RIA Novosti said Aliyev “thanked Putin for the detailed information about the AZAL plane and for the Russian leader’s personal oversight of the investigation into the cause of the crash.”

“You are personally overseeing the investigation, and we had no doubt that it would objectively sort everything out,” Aliyev said.

Aliyev also congratulated the Kremlin leader on his birthday, which had been two days before their meeting, with the two noting positive developments in bilateral relations this year.

“I am confident that the messages we are sending to our societies today will be equally positively received,” Aliyev added.

Despite the positive tone of Thursday’s meeting, the tragedy marked the start of deteriorating bilateral ties between Baku and Moscow, which were later worsened by raids on Azeri-owned businesses in Yekaterinburg that caused several deaths and injuries, as well as Russian strikes on Azerbaijani energy assets in Ukraine’s Odesa region.

In August, Aliyev delivered one of his strongest anti-Moscow speeches to date, describing Azerbaijan’s absorption into the Soviet Union in 1920 as nothing less than a “Russian invasion and occupation.”