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 President Ilham Aliyev accused Vladimir Putin and his administration of trying to cover up the doomed Azerbaijan Airlines flight that was shot down by Russia on Christmas Day.

Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a rare public apology on Saturday following the fatal crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines flight in Russian airspace.

Azerbaijan Airlines is blaming the plane crash on "external interference" and suspending further flights to Russian airports.

The Embraer 190 aircraft was supposed to fly northwest from the Azerbaijani capital Baku to the city of Grozny in Chechnya in southern Russia, but instead diverted far off course across the Caspian Sea. It crashed Wednesday near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan.

An oil field in Texas has been named the most pollutive site in the world at the United Nations climate talks in Baku, Azerbaijan.

While negotiators haggle behind closed doors on the key task of increasing climate funds for developing nations, executives from top oil firms including France's TotalEnergies are holding events.

Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev slammed the West's hypocrisy around emissions while hailing oil and gas as a "gift of God" during his opening remarks at COP29.

A senior official at the COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan was caught on camera discussing potential fossil fuel investment deals.

The former Soviet republic of 10 million people brimming with hydrocarbons is on track to increase its gas production by 35 percent in the next 10 years, contrary to efforts to contain global warming.

Armenia and Azerbaijan joined talks Monday in Tehran seeking to ease tensions between the arch foes, which soared with Baku's lightning offensive to retake the long-disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.

President Ilham Aliyev raised Azerbaijan's flag in the main city of Nagorno-Karabakh on Sunday, cementing Baku's conquest of the region after last month's lightening offensive that led to an exodus of ethnic Armenians.

Foes Armenia and Azerbaijan crossed swords at the UN's top court Thursday, as Yerevan accused Baku of "ethnic cleansing" in Nagorno-Karabakh, sparking a furious response from the Azerbaijani side over the "unfounded" charges.

Envoys from Baku and Yerevan prepared to meet in Brussels for talks on Tuesday as thousands of refugees fled Nagorno-Karabakh after Azerbaijan's lightning takeover of the majority ethnic Armenian enclave.