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.

Four sources with knowledge of the preliminary findings of Azerbaijan's investigation told Reuters that Russian air defences mistakenly shot it down.

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.

The Kremlin has said that the Russian president "apologized for the tragic incident" and expressed his "deep and sincere condolences" to the victims' families.

Thirty-eight passengers and crew died when Azerbaijan Airlines flight J2-8243 from the airline’s hub at Baku to Grozny, the capital of Russia‘s Chechnya, crashed short of Aktau airport in Kazakhstan;

Flight attendant Aydan Rahimli described the dramatic events aboard the Azerbaijan Airlines plane that was shot down. The disaster occurred on 25 December in Kazakhstan. Twenty-nine people survived. Flight 8243 of Azerbaijan Airlines from Baku to Grozny ended in tragedy.