Azerbaijani police raided the offices of the Kremlin-backed media outlet Sputnik in Baku and detained individuals reportedly linked to Russian intelligence, prompting swift diplomatic retaliation from Moscow.
Azerbaijani media reported that two individuals arrested during the search were members of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), though Russian reports claimed that journalists had been detained. Russia's Foreign Ministry condemned the arrests as “unfriendly actions by Baku” and summoned Azerbaijan’s ambassador to Moscow, accusing the country of illegally detaining Russian journalists.
In response, a protest note was delivered to the Azerbaijani ambassador in Moscow. Sputnik, the outlet at the center of the controversy, is widely regarded as a Kremlin mouthpiece known for spreading pro-Russian narratives abroad.
The raid follows a wave of arrests in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg over the weekend, where authorities detained around 50 ethnic Azerbaijanis suspected of involvement in contract killings between 2001 and 2011. At least two people reportedly died during the operation, including one officially said to have suffered heart failure.
Baku condemned the Russian actions as “unacceptable” and summoned the Russian ambassador to express its discontent. Azerbaijani officials have also pushed back against what they perceive as disproportionate targeting of their diaspora.
The diplomatic rift deepened further when Azerbaijan cancelled several planned Russian cultural events in protest of the arrests, a move the Kremlin publicly criticized. Moscow said it “strongly disagreed” with the decision and viewed it as part of a broader pattern of hostility.
Underlying tensions had already been simmering since the downing of an Azerbaijani passenger plane over the Chechen capital, Grozny, in late 2024, an incident for which Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a formal apology to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.
