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 accidental shooting from the ground in Russia,

An Azerbaijan Airlines flight travelling from Baku to Grozny has crashed in Kazakhstan with nearly 70 passengers onboard. Several survivors are in a critical condition. Source: Radio Liberty's Kazakhstan service;

Russians who reviewed the transcript of the crew's conversations from the Baku-Grozny flight themselves admit that the air crash was caused by their air defense systems (ADS), according to Andriy Kovalenko,

NATO spokesman Farah Dahlalla expressed condolences over the crash of the Azerbaijan Airlines plane near the Kazakh city of Aktau and called for a comprehensive investigation.

"No one claims that it was done on purpose," an Azerbaijan official told Reuters. They added their government "expects the Russian side to confess."

An Azerbaijan Airlines flight to the southern Russian town of Mineralnie Vody turned back to Baku on Friday after being told a chunk of airspace in southern Russia had been closed, Russia's TASS news agency reported.

Experts say evidence in the Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash in Kazakhstan points to a possible midair explosion, not an encounter with a flock of birds.

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Aviation experts say that Russian air defense fire was likely responsible for the Azerbaijani plane crash the day before that killed 38 people and left all 29 survivors injured.