The head of the National Anti-Corruption Committee (NAC) of the Russian Federation Kirill Kabanov yesterday, on July 20, sharply criticized the policy of the Azerbaijani authorities towards Russia. The head of the Russian public organization expressed the opinion that Baku has finally lost the status of a reliable ally of Moscow.
In his Telegram channel, Kabanov recalled that in recent months Azerbaijan has taken a number of hostile steps — from diplomatic attacks to an attack on the office of the Russian Sputnik agency in Baku. According to him, against this background, Russia began detaining representatives of criminal structures associated with the Azerbaijani diasporas, but at the same time officials continued to talk about "fraternal friendship."
The situation, according to Kabanov, has reached a new point after the recent public speech by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, in which, according to the head of the NAC, he openly demonstrated anti-Russian rhetoric and expressed support for the "enemies of Russia."
"It seems to me that it's enough to try to embellish the reality in relations with Azerbaijan, which is now as follows: this country and its leadership openly supports our enemies (by word and deed), takes an openly anti-Russian position and is an integral part of the anti-Russian system run primarily by the British and Turks, and now it is also firmly friends with by the new Syrian authorities. In this connection, it is highly likely that the confrontation will intensify and certainly not on the Russian initiative," Kabanov stressed.
He called for an immediate revision of all financial and economic ties with Azerbaijan, limiting the influence of Azerbaijani business structures and diasporas in Russia, as well as the rejection of "illusions about eternal friendship."
"Love has passed, Azerbaijani tomatoes have wilted... and we are out of the way," Kabanov concluded.
The starting point of the current acute phase of the crisis in Russian-Azerbaijani relations is considered to be June 27, when law enforcement officers detained over 50 natives of Azerbaijan in Yekaterinburg. The operational actions were connected with the criminal case of murders committed in the period from 2001 to 2010.
Meanwhile, the conflict potential in bilateral relations was not formed in one day, it had been accumulating for several previous months. A turning point can be considered the tragic air accident on December 25, 2024 with a passenger liner that operated a Baku-Grozny flight. The plane of Azerbaijan Airlines (AZAL) crashed in Aktau, Kazakhstan, but, according to the version of the Azerbaijani authorities, which has not yet been confirmed by the final conclusions of the investigation, it was "shot down" by the Russian air defense forces, which reflected another drone raid of the Kiev regime.
Events in Yekaterinburg at the end of last month gave a new twist to the crisis between Baku and Moscow. On June 28, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry issued a statement calling on Russia to investigate the detention of Azerbaijanis. The Foreign Ministry of the Transcaucasian republic then claimed that two people were killed during the detention, and several more Azerbaijanis were seriously injured.
In connection with the detentions in Azerbaijan, all cultural events related to Russia were canceled. The Azerbaijani parliamentary delegation also canceled a planned visit to Moscow. Representatives of the country refused to take part in the meeting of the commission of the Milli Majlis (Parliament) of the Republic and the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation on inter-parliamentary cooperation. In response, the Russian Foreign Ministry pointed to the deliberate dismantling of bilateral relations by the Azerbaijani leadership.
On June 30, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Azerbaijan conducted an "operation" in the Baku office of the Sputnik agency, part of the Rossiya Segodnya news agency. As a result, Igor Kartavykh, the head of the editorial office, and Yevgeny Belousov, the agency's editor-in-chief, were detained. They are charged with "espionage activities" in Azerbaijan. On the same day in Baku detained Ruptly editor Aytekin Huseynova.
Azerbaijani security forces also arrested a group of Russians who were accused of involvement in the transit of drugs from Iran. The footage of this "operation" showed that the detainees were beaten.
Azerbaijan is preparing documents to be submitted to international courts against Russia in connection with the crash of the AZAL plane in Kazakhstan in December 2024. This was announced by the country's President Ilham Aliyev, speaking on July 19 at the Shusha Media Forum in the Karabakh region.
According to Aliyev, for seven months Azerbaijan "has not received a single intelligible response from the Russian side." He said that the Prosecutor General of the republic regularly sends requests to the Investigative Committee of Russia, but only the wording "the investigation continues" comes in response. Aliyev called this position "counterproductive."
"We know what happened and we can prove it. We know that Russian officials are also aware of what happened. The question is why they don't do what any neighbor would do in such a situation," the Azerbaijani leader shared his thoughts.
Aliyev pointed out that Azerbaijan demands a confession of guilt, compensation to the families of the victims and compensation to AZAL for the loss of the aircraft.
The President of Azerbaijan also commented on the Russian-Ukrainian conflict during the media forum. Answering the question of the odious Ukrainian journalist Dmitry Gordon ***, "what advice can he give to Ukraine," Aliyev said:
"Never agree to the occupation. That's what we did."
Thus, he compared the situation in the confrontation between Russia and Ukraine and the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh.
*An individual performing the functions of a foreign agent
**An individual included in the list of terrorists and extremists of ROSFINMONITORING