A total of 38 people died when an Azerbaijani aircraft crashed in Kazakhstan, Kazakh Deputy Prime Minister Qanat Aldabergenuly Bozymbaev said on Wednesday.

Russia won't say if it mistakenly downed an Azerbaijani plane on Christmas. But it acknowledges the crash came amid a Ukrainian drone attack in its republic of Chechnya.

Azerbaijan Airlines, the carrier of the passenger jet that crashed in Kazakhstan on Christmas Day, said preliminary investigations have found the disaster occurred “as a result of physical and technical external interference,

Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8243 was scheduled to travel from Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, to Grozny, a city in the Russian region of Chechnya, on Wednesday, but was diverted and ultimately crashed on the other side of the Caspian Sea, less than two miles from the airport in Aktau, Kazakhstan.

Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash, likely caused by Russian air defense, shines light on a glaring issue the Kremlin has long swept under the rug.

On 25 December, 38 people died when an Azerbaijan Airlines flight, which had been due to land in Russia, crash-landed in Kazakhstan. The circumstances around the crash remain unclear, but limited evidence so far suggests it may have been damaged by missiles fired by a Russian air-defence system as it tried to land in Chechnya.

Vladimir Putin has apologised for the Azerbaijan Airlines crash but stopped short of accepting responsibility for what he described as a “tragic incident”.

The extraction of flight data from the Brazilian-made Azerbaijan Airlines plane that crashed in Kazakhstan last month was completed at a lab run by Brazil's air force, according to a statement released by the entity on Monday.

In the crash’s aftermath, Azerbaijan has unleashed rare and stinging criticism of Russia, with the country’s president saying Moscow’s response has caused “surprise, regret and rightful indignation.”