Iran knew its military had shot down a Ukrainian passenger jet as soon as it happened, a leaked recording suggests.

The recording, of a conversation between an Iranian pilot and a Tehran control tower, was played on Ukrainian TV on Sunday night.

The pilot, flying for Aseman, an Iranian airline, apparently in the air at the time, can be heard saying: "Is this an active area? There's lights like a missile. Is there anything?"

Image: A woman places flowers at a memorial for the victims of the plane crash in Tehran

The controller replies: "Nothing has been reported to us. What's the light like?"

"It's the light of a missile," the pilot responds.


The control tower can then be heard trying unsuccessfully to contact the Ukrainian airliner on the radio.

The pilot of the Iranian plane then says he has seen "an explosion... In a very big way, we saw it... I really don't know what it was".

All 176 people on board Ukraine International Airways flight 752 died when it crashed shortly after takeoff on the way from Tehran to Kiev on 8 January.

Most of the victims were from Ukraine; 57 Canadians were on board.

Kateryna Gaponenko says she had asked her husband, the pilot, not to fly

Image: Mourners console each other during a vigil for the victims of Ukrainian Airlines flight 752

Iran initially said it was not responsible but three days later admitted it had shot down the aircraft by mistake.

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, expressed "deep sympathy" to the victims, and said the armed forces must "pursue probable shortcomings and guilt in the painful incident".

Its forces, it said, had been on high alert for a US response to missiles Tehran launched at US targets in retaliation for a US drone strike that killed an Iranian general.

In a television interview, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the leaked audio "proves that the Iranian side knew from the start that our plane had been hit by a missile".

"He says that 'it seems to me that a missile is flying', he says it in both Persian and English, everything is fixed there."

The Iranian team investigating the crash has criticised Ukraine for releasing the audio and said it will not share "any more evidence with them".