Azerbaijani plane that crashed had holes in its fuselage, report says.

ASTANA (Reuters) - An Azerbaijani passenger plane that crashed in December after being diverted from Russia to Kazakhstan suffered external damage and was riddled with holes in its fuselage, according to a report published on a Kazakh government website on Tuesday.

Thirty-eight people died when the plane, an Embraer E190 operated by Azerbaijan Airlines, crashed on December 25 near the city of Aktau, Kazakhstan, after being diverted from southern Russia over the Caspian Sea.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said in December that the plane had been damaged by an accidental firing from Russia. Moscow has not confirmed this information.

Following the accident, Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a rare apology to Aliyev for the "tragic incident" in Russian airspace, but the Kremlin did not say that Russia had fired on the plane, only noting that a criminal case had been opened.

The preliminary report was issued in accordance with global aviation rules designed to draw lessons to prevent future accidents, rather than assigning blame or responsibility.

The text was carefully written and did not specify what had caused the extensive damage to the aircraft, including its stabilizers, hydraulic systems, and trim tabs.

But it included photographs showing that the port side of the tail section was perforated with several holes. Also photographed were fragments described as "strange metallic objects" removed from the left stabilizer and the hydraulic system.

A senior Azerbaijani government official told Reuters that the external impact mentioned in the report was caused by a Russian surface-to-air missile.

"The Azerbaijani side possesses a fragment of a Pantsir-S missile, which was extracted from the aircraft and identified by international experts," the source said.

This was the first time a government source in Baku claimed to have physical proof that Russia shot down the plane. No comment was initially available from Russian officials on Tuesday evening.

Russia stated that it has assigned its own investigation to the most experienced experts and that steps are being taken to establish the cause and circumstances of the incident.

The plane was flying from Baku to Grozny in southern Russia, where the Kremlin said Ukrainian drones were attacking several cities at the time.

Twenty-nine people survived the forced landing in Kazakhstan. Aliyev hailed the pilots who died as national heroes. The Azerbaijani leader said that Russian individuals were to blame and that Baku demands justice.