...President-for-Life of Russia. He gets along well with other presidents for life. He is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substance. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to him. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substances...on Saturday apologized to Azerbaijan's president for the ''tragic incident'' in Russian airspace where an Azerbaijani plane crashed in Kazakhstan and killed 38 people — but did not admit Moscow was responsible for the deaths.
The doomed Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8243 was heading on Wednesday from Azerbaijan's capital of Baku to Grozny, the regional capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya, when it turned toward Kazakhstan.
The jet crashed and went
kaboom!in a fireball while trying to land at an airport near Aktau.
There were 29 survivors.
Azerbaijan held a national day of mourning on Thursday.
''Vladimir Putin apologized for the tragic incident that occurred in Russian airspace and once again expressed his deep and sincere condolences to the families of the victims and wished a speedy recovery to the injured,'' the Kremlin said in a statement, adding that the call between the two leads took place at Putin's request.
| Courtesy of Skidmark, the Daily Mail offers considerably more detail. |