The Kremlin has welcomed a meeting with US president-elect Donald Trump just days after he claimed Vladimir Putin wanted to sit down with him.Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said there could be progress on setting up the meeting after Trump is sworn in as US president on 20 January.

Russia won't say if it mistakenly downed an Azerbaijani plane on Christmas. But it acknowledges the crash came amid a Ukrainian drone attack in its republic of Chechnya.

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.

It comes after Ukraine said it was behind a drone strike on a Russian oil base in the region. Submit your questions for our correspondents in the box below.

Vladimir Putin has apologised for the Azerbaijan Airlines crash but stopped short of accepting responsibility for what he described as a “tragic incident”.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Monday blamed the Russian war in Ukraine for the deadly Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash in Kazakhstan. "Russia's brutal war against Ukraine is affecting more and more innocent people - even outside Ukraine. This is shown by the air disaster in Aktau, which must be fully investigated," Scholz wrote on X.

Azerbaijan's president says plane was subject to 'external ... Zelenskyy accuses Slovakia's prime minister of opening 'second energy front' against Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accused Slovakia's Prime Minister Robert Fico of opening a "second energy ...

Missiles have become the leading cause of death among airline passengers with more than 500 cases recorded in the last decade, the most recent of which was the Azerbaijan Airlines allegedly shot

Azerbaijan Airlines, the carrier of the passenger jet that crashed in Kazakhstan on Christmas Day, said preliminary investigations have found the disaster occurred “as a result of physical and technical external interference,

Ukraine prioritizing security guarantees over immediate NATO membership, senior diplomat says Russia must admit guilt over downing Azerbaijani airliner, pay compensation, Azerbaijan's president says Ukraine secures over $156 million for defense industry from European allies,

But Azerbaijan, a former Soviet state, has become increasingly critical to the Russian economy since the war in Ukraine began. It buys Russian oil and gas and provides trade links to Iran ...