The driver, whose truck ploughed into the bus in Russia, was earning money to erect a tombstone to his dead son, his brother told Russian NTV television.

Hrachya Harutyunyan’s 21-year-old son was killed in the army last year and he wanted to make good tombstone on his grave.

“None of my family would think about causing such harm. I am absolutely sure that the problem was about brake,” Harut Harutyunyan said.

In Yerevan, the 46-year-old driver left his wife, daughter, grandson and elderly father.

Eighteen people were killed and at least 40 injured in a road crash, involving a truck, a bus and other vehicles several kilometers south from the center of Moscow.