Moscow-Baku tensions: What is known so far

The relationship between Moscow and Baku has rapidly deteriorated in the aftermath of a Russian police raid on a suspected ethnic organized crime gang, which resulted in the death of two suspects.

Baku has retaliated by taking hostile steps, targeting Russian journalists and artists and detaining a group of the country’s nationals it portrayed as a “crime ring.”

Here is how the events unfolded:

Azerbaijan plays ethnic card

The raid and the death of the suspects have invoked fury in Azerbaijan, with multiple politicians and public figures demanding retaliation against Moscow and accusing the Russian authorities of targeting the alleged crime group based on its ethnicity rather than anything else.

Shortly after the incident, the Azerbaijani Ministry of Culture canceled multiple events involving Russian performers, while the country’s parliamentary delegation scrapped its scheduled visit to Moscow.

On Monday, Azerbaijan’s national food safety agency reported the destruction of some 639 kilograms of onion rings imported from Russia, claiming they were contaminated with bacteria.

On Tuesday, Baku officially accused Russian law enforcement of beating the Safarov brothers to death. The bodies of the suspects had been transferred to Azerbaijan for burial and local medical examiners reportedly indicated that both men had succumbed to severe blunt force trauma.

Baku targets Russian journalists

On Monday, police in Baku raided the office of Russian news agency Sputnik, arresting two senior editors. The agency has been accused of operating “through illegal financing.” The head of the editorial office, Igor Kartavykh, and Editor-in-Chief Evgeny Belousov were placed in pre-trial detention for four months.

During the raid, Azerbaijani police also detained an editor with the Russian video news agency Ruptly, who was filming outside the Sputnik’s office. The journalist, Aytekin Guseynova, spent only some 20 minutes filming before ending up in police custody.

The Russian Foreign Ministry summoned Azerbaijani ambassador Rakhman Mustafaev shortly after the raid on Sputnik, citing “Baku’s hostile actions and the unlawful detention of Russian journalists.” The envoy, in turn, handed the ministry a note condemning the alleged “torture and degrading actions” of Russian law enforcement.

Azerbaijan finds Russian ‘crime ring’

On Tuesday, Azerbaijani police arrested eight Russian nationals, claiming they were members of a group involved in cybercrime and the trafficking of drugs from Iran. Tehran, however, maintains an extremely strict stance on the sale of narcotics, which is a capital offense.

The suspects were transferred to a Baku court in a heavily armed police convoy. All the Russian nationals appeared to have been severely beaten up, with multiple visible bruises and blood, footage from the court circulated by local media suggested. All the suspects were placed in pre-trial detention for four months.

Russian media reports, however, identified two of the suspects as IT specialists who had left the country in the wake of the conflict between Moscow and Kiev. Another detainee was reportedly identified as a Russian tourist, who was in Azerbaijan on vacation.