Russia’s failure to let the plane land and its refusal to take responsibility for the crash are upsetting a key partner.

The leader of Azerbaijan criticized the Russian response to the crash of a passenger jet that Azerbaijani officials said had most likely been hit by Russian air defenses.

"We can clearly say today that the plane was shot down by Russia," President Ilham Aliyev said in a televised statement

"Unfortunately, in the first three days we heard only absurd versions from Russia," President Ilham Aliyev said, citing statements in Russia that attributed the crash to a bird strike or the explosion of some sort of gas cylinder.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev says Russia shot down one of his country's passenger planes "by accident" last week.