By Nailia Bagirova and Anton Kolodyazhnyy BAKU/MOSCOW (Reuters) -Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said on Sunday that a passenger plane that crashed last week, killing 38 people, had been damaged by shooting from the ground in Russia,

President Vladimir Putin on Saturday apologised to Azerbaijan’s leader for what the Kremlin called a “tragic incident” over Russia in which an Azerbaijan Airlines plane crashed after Russian air defences were fired against Ukrainian drones.

Survivors from the Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8243 that went down in Kazakhstan are speaking out for the first time since the tragedy. 29 passengers survived the crash.

Vladimir Putin admitted Saturday Russian air defence was working when an Azerbaijani Airlines plane tried to land in Grozny before crashing, breaking the Kremlin's silence as speculation mounted Russia may have accidentally shot the plane.

A passenger jet operated by Azerbaijan Airlines crashed near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan on Wednesday, after diverting from an area of southern Russia where Moscow has repeatedly used air defence systems against Ukrainian attack drones.

Footage shows survivors walking and being dragged away from the tail section of a crashed Azerbaijan Airlines plane. Wednesday's flight from Baku to Grozny in the Russian republic of Chechnya was diverted across the Caspian Sea and went down near the western Kazakhstan city of Aktau.

Azerbaijan on Sunday paid tribute to the pilots and passengers of the Azerbaijan Airlines passenger plane that crashed in Kazakhstan killing 38 people after Russian air defences were used against Ukrainian drones.