The Kremlin is once again denying that Russian forces accidentally shot down the Azerbaijan Airlines plane that crashed on December 25 in Kazakhstan, killing 38 people.

Despite Baku’s insistence that the plane was hit by Russian fire, the Kremlin through spokesman Dmitry Peskov once again denied responsibility.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said the Azerbaijani passenger plane was shot down “from the ground” over the Russian city of Grozny where it was about to land.

Russia said its air defenses were working at the time to repel Ukrainian drones, but did not admit to shooting down the plane.

Aliyev, a close ally of Moscow, reiterated this week that the “guilt” rests with Russia and accused it of “hiding” the real causes.

“We are interested in an absolutely objective and impartial investigation to establish the causes of this disaster,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday.

“We await the results of the commission,” he added, saying Russian “experts are fully cooperating.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin called Aliyev twice after the disaster.

The Kremlin said it apologized for the incident taking place in Russian airspace, however, the Russian president did not acknowledge that Moscow was responsible for the disaster.

Aliyev expressed his anger at Moscow’s handling of the crash. He was heavily criticized and apologized earlier this week, calling on Moscow to punish those responsible for the “criminal” shooting down of the plane.

Aliyev said air defense measures for Grozny – the capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya – were announced only after the plane was “shot down from the ground”.

Azerbaijan also maintains that the plane was riddled with holes and that preliminary results of its investigation show that it was accidentally hit by a Russian air defense missile.