Azerbaijan has cancelled all planned cultural events hosted alongside Russian state and private organizations, the country's Culture Ministry announced on June 29, over the deaths of two Azerbaijani citizens during police raids in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg.
Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry said on June 28 that Ziyaddin and Huseyn Safarov died during a raid carried out by Russian authorities. Azerbaijan called the killings "ethnically motivated public and deliberate unlawful actions" and said that Russia's action have "recently taken on a systematic nature."
The raid was reportedly conducted amid an investigation into an unsolved 2001 murder. Several other people were injured in the raid and a total of nine individuals were detained.
In a comment to Azerbaijani public broadcaster ITV, Sayfaddin Huseynli, the brother of the deceased, claimed that the two men were tortured to death "without any trial or investigation, despite their innocence."
The official cause of death was not immediately known.
As a result of the incident, Azerbaijani state media also reported that the government had cancelled a planned visit by Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexey Overchuk, stating that the country "does not consider it appropriate under the current circumstances for Overchuk or any other official representative of Russia to visit."
Tensions between Baku and Moscow have continued to sour in recent months since Russia's downing of an Azerbaijan Airlines plane that killed 67 passengers. Since then, Azerbaijani lawmaker have blamed Russia for February cyberattack, and the country's President Ilham Aliyev skipped out on attending Russia’s Victory Day parade in Moscow in May.
As relations dwindle, Ukraine has sought to build relations with Baku. Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha also visited Azerbaijan in May.
In February, Aliyev's office announced it was delivering $1 million in humanitarian aid to Ukraine in the form of electrical equipment to support the country's energy grid amid Russian attacks.
Azerbaijan's primary regional foe, Armenia, also a historic ally of Moscow, has also effectively severed relations with the Kremlin.
Earlier this year, Yerevan formally signed a law to begin Armenia's accession process to the European Union. The decision comes growing rift with Russia accelerated after the Kremlin failed to prevent Azerbaijan's September 2023 offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh, leading to the mass exodus of the region's Armenian population.
The Kyiv Independent news desk
(Updated: )
