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, and he said some in Russia had lied about the cause of the disaster.

Following Azerbaijan's president calling for Moscow to accept blame for downing an Azerbaijani plane, there is growing public anger toward Russia for its apparent attempts to sidestep responsibility for the incident.

Russian President Vladimir Putin apologized for the plane crash in Russian air space on Christmas Day that left 38 people dead in a statement that said Russia was targeting Ukrainian drones over the plane’s planned destination at the time, but stopped short of taking responsibility.

Azerbaijan Airlines’ Embraer 190 was en route from the Azerbaijani capital of Baku to Grozny in the North Caucasus on Wednesday when it was diverted. It crashed while trying to land near the city of Aktau, Kazakhstan, after flying hundreds of kilometers (miles) east across the Caspian Sea.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on Sunday demanded that Russia admit that it fired at an Azerbaijan Airlines passenger jet before it crashed, accusing Moscow of initially trying to cover up the cause of the fatal disaster.

Azerbaijan’s president accused Russia of trying to cover up its role in a plane crash that killed 38 people, delivering a harsh condemnation that signalled a reversal of the power dynamics that long saw Moscow hold sway over its former Soviet republics.

As Azerbaijan squarely put the blame on Russia for shooting down its passenger aircraft, relations between Moscow and its neighbors could become complicated. VOA Russian spoke to American analyst Paul Goble,

The plane crash in Kazakhstan killed 38 of the 67 people on board. The plane was flying from Azerbaijan's capital, Baku, to Grozny when it turned toward Kazakhstan, hundreds of kilometers (miles) across the Caspian Sea from its intended destination,