Image by Arzu Geybullayeva, created via CanvaPro.

Just this May, nearly six months after the fatal Azerbaijan Airlines (AZAL) plane crash near the city of Aqtau in Kazakhstan, tensions between Russia and Azerbaijan appeared to be at their peak, with authorities in Baku accusing their Russian counterparts of dragging their feet in sharing the results of the investigation. But ever since two Azerbaijani brothers, Huseyn and Ziyaddin Safarov, were killed following raids in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg on June 27, relations have deteriorated even further.

Diplomatic mission representatives were summoned in their respective countries, even as the Azerbaijani prosecutor's office launched a criminal investigation into the brothers’ deaths. Video footage of an ethnic Azerbaijani woman getting attacked by a Russian citizen in Yekaterinburg on July 1, and – the very same day – the head of the Azerbaijani diaspora community Shahin Shikhlinski getting dragged out of his car and beaten by Russian soldiers, escalated matters further. Tensions continued to escalate over the following days as both countries took reciprocal actions in a show of power.

The trigger

After the brothers’ bodies were sent to Baku, a forensic examination showed signs of severe beating, including multiple fractures, broken ribs, and signs of haemorrhage. All their organs had been removed during the autopsy in Russia, further raising suspicions about the actual cause of death, and prompting the head of forensic examination at Azerbaijan's Ministry of Health to accuse the Russian authorities of lying.

On July 2, Parviz Jalilov of the Investigative Department of the Prosecutor General's Office of Azerbaijan said at a press briefing that a video taken during the brothers’ arrest showed Ziyaddin without physical injuries and looking healthy. This led him to conclude that Safarov “died as a result of torture.”

Meanwhile, Ramil Safarov, who survived the beating, recounted to reporters what happened on the day of the raid: “They broke down the door and ransacked the house. They beat me up as I lay on the ground. I am covered in bruises. They were beating me in one room, and my father in the other. They threatened to kill me unless I framed my father for something he did not do.”

Vugar Safarov, another survivor, added his own testimony: “At first, I didn’t open the door. But when I saw they were breaking it down, I opened it myself. Everyone was masked. They were officers from Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB). There were two children in the house as well. They beat us without asking any questions. They ransacked the house and beat us for an hour. They slammed our heads on the ground. They hit us on the head with chairs. In detention, they insulted us, hit us on the head, and tortured us with electric shocks.”

His father, arrested with him, was also subject to torture. “I could hear his screams,” Safarov recalled. “Even though my father told them he had a stent in his heart, they still tortured that part of his body with electric shocks. They beat him for 10 hours, and in the end, he screamed, ‘I’m dying,’ so they finally called an ambulance. When they took him to the hospital, he told me, ‘Son, they want to put everything on me. All my ribs are broken.’”

According to the independent Russian media outlet Meduza, of those detained, six were sent into pretrial detention on July 1. In retaliation, Azerbaijan cancelled all Russian cultural events; suspended high-level bilateral meetings – including the upcoming visit by Russian Deputy Prime Minister Aleksei Overchuk; raided the office of Russian propaganda news outlet Sputnik, detaining seven journalists; and held over a dozen Russian citizens on suspicions of drug trafficking and cybercrime.

That same day, Minval, a pro-government Azerbaijani media outlet, released what it claims are audio recordings and a letter sent to Russian officer Dmitry Paliduchuk, in which he allegedly received orders from the Russian Ministry of Defense to open fire on the AZAL passenger flight.

By July 2, images and videos began circulating of Russian citizens – arrested on the grounds of trafficking drugs from Iran, online trade in prohibited substances, and cyber fraud – being brought to court in Baku, showing signs of having been beaten. Russian media reported that among those arrested, four were IT specialists, one was a student from St. Petersburg and another, a psychologist. According to Azerbaijan's state news agency APA, the Russian Consul General in Baku was able to meet with the detainees on July 3, but no details have been shared about the outcome of that meeting.

Previous tensions

Back in February, Azerbaijani authorities shut down Russia House, a local branch of the Russian state-funded cultural diplomacy agency Rossotrudnichestvo, a key body in promoting the country's soft power. The official reason given was its status as an unregistered entity.

In the following weeks, Azerbaijani authorities also ordered the closure of the Azerbaijani branch of Russia Today, a Russian state-funded news outlet that is a subsidiary of the Sputnik news agency. The most recent raid on Sputnik was justified within the scope of earlier allegations leveled against the presence of the Russian state-funded media in Azerbaijan – “illegal financing.”

Of the seven detained journalists, the head of the Sputnik Azerbaijan editorial office, Igor Kartavykh, and editor-in-chief Evgeny Belousov were sent to four months of pretrial detention on charges of fraud, illegal entrepreneurship and legalisation of property obtained by criminal means. According to the latest reports, the rest were released with a warning not to leave the country.

Both foreign affairs ministries exchanged notes verbales, with Russia calling the raid on Sputnik “unfriendly” and a “deliberate attempt to disrupt bilateral relations,” while Azerbaijan said it was concerned about the torture and degrading treatment of Azerbaijanis, as well as cases of ethnic intolerance.

Such developments have made the trauma of the December 25, 2024 plane crash cut even deeper. The Azerbaijani aircraft was downed after being struck by “external objects,” which video footage and eyewitness testimony attribute to a Russian missile. Diplomatic relations between the two countries have been in free fall ever since.

Most recently, on July 2, there were reports of several Russian media outlets having published news about the son of Azerbaijan's president, Ilham Aliyev, owing about a million Russian rubles (USD 10 million) in tax debt. Similarly, according to Gazeta.ru, the Federal Bailiff Service (FBS) of the Russian Federation initiated enforcement proceedings against Azerbaijani businessman Araz Agalarov, a well-known Azerbaijani businessman living in Russia, whose son is also the former son-in-law of President Aliyev's daughter.

In a separate report by Meydan TV, news broke that Ahmed Hajiyev, head of the Lukoil Group of Companies, an oil and gas producer that operates in the Urals, was detained in Russia, also on July 2. Businessman Yusif Khalilov was detained but later released, and Vagif Suleymanov, another Azerbaijani living in Russia known as “thief-in-law,” was detained to be deported to Azerbaijan in three months.

Media outlets in both countries have been engaged in criticism since the deterioration of diplomatic relations. The most recent reports say Russia has blocked access to websites registered with the .az domain and deported at least two Azerbaijani families. Radio Liberty's Azerbaijan Service released a report about the concerns of ethnic Azerbaijanis living in Russia; everyone interviewed anonymized their names. According to unofficial estimates, there are some two million Azerbaijanis resident in Russia.