In recent days, relations between Azerbaijan and Russia have deteriorated sharply. There were even calls in the federation for the Russian army to attack the former Soviet republic in a new “special military operation“. However, is this possible and what are the reasons for this tension?
Olexander Kovalenko, a military-political analyst from the group “Information Resistance“, believes that at the moment Russia does not have the strength to start a new war on another front, writes OBOZ.ua.
In recent months, Russia has seen a sharp increase in the persecution of migrants, especially those who have received Russian citizenship. This applies to representatives of almost all non-Slavic nationalities, not just Azerbaijanis. But it was the Azerbaijani diaspora that began to experience particular pressure from the beginning of 2025, culminating in a case of blatant lawlessness at the end of June.
In Yekaterinburg, Russian security forces detained up to fifty representatives of the Azerbaijani diaspora on suspicion of committing a crime dating back to 2001. The main suspects, the brothers Ziyadin and Hussein Safarov, were tortured and killed in their apartment during their detention. Of course, the crime has no statute of limitations. But it seems very strange that the FSB suddenly decided to recall a case from 2001.
The persecution of Azerbaijanis in Russia has been carried out systematically for several months, and according to one version, the first deputy head of the presidential administration of the Russian Federation, Sergei Kiriyenko, is behind these actions. That is, all this is not happening on some local initiative, this is a matter of state nature.
Of course, Azerbaijan could not stand idly by when its citizens were openly persecuted, tortured and killed.
Many may be left with the impression that the two countries have relatively balanced relations, which, if not openly friendly, are at least good-neighborly. But this is another mistake caused by bad information. Azerbaijan and Russia have never been good neighbors, quite the opposite.
On January 20, 1990, Soviet troops stormed the capital of Azerbaijan - Baku. The reason for the attack was that the Azerbaijani Popular Front had become a serious rival of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan, although the Soviet media manipulated the information and called the reason for the military operation in Baku the protection of the Armenian population. Later, after the declassification of a number of documents, it became clear that the bloody terror was exclusively political in nature, planned in advance. The result of the terror was an even greater desire of the Azerbaijanis to be independent from the USSR.
A strong Azerbaijan was not needed by either the old USSR or the new Russia, and therefore the decision was made to weaken it through a regional conflict that would drain resources and prevent it from developing to its full potential.
After the occupation of Karabakh, modern Russia, in order to put pressure on both sides and maintain remote control over the region, began to saturate both Armenia and Azerbaijan with weapons.
Nagorno-Karabakh was the culmination of these relations, when Baku liberated the occupied territories and the Russian “peacekeeping“ forces were forced to return home.
In September 2023 Azerbaijan launched a 24-hour war, which led to the complete liberation of Karabakh, without serious resistance from the Armenian side and the withdrawal of the so-called Russian peacekeepers from the region.
It is striking that in parallel with Azerbaijan's military actions in Karabakh, Armenia began to leave the Kremlin's orbit of influence, and quite quickly. Instead of the old overseer, Yerevan began to establish, strengthen and increase cooperation with France, India, Greece and even Iran.
On December 25, 2022, Azerbaijan Airlines flight 8243 was hit by a Russian missile and crashed in Kazakhstan. Moscow's plan was for the plane to crash into the sea and for no one to ever know the cause of the crash. Russia, even with the facts and evidence of its guilt, continued to brazenly lie and categorically refused to apologize for the bloodshed.
It is not in Moscow's rules to apologize. Azerbaijan's reaction was not only a cooling of relations, but also more active work by Azerbaijani special services against Russian agents in the country.
Azerbaijani special services monitor the situation in the country at a very high level and, if active threats arise, counteract them without hesitation. In particular, in February 2025, Baku announced the closure of the “Russian House“ - a pseudo-cultural representation of Russia, which in many countries is an operational headquarters for spies and working with agents.
Over the past six months, Azerbaijan has been methodically, openly, officially and without attracting much media attention, purging Russian agents on its territory.
The current persecution of the Azerbaijani diaspora in Russia is precisely the reaction of the Russian authorities to the fact that in Azerbaijan it is methodically cutting off painfully Russian attempts to control the country.
The historical memory of Russia's crimes is alive among Azerbaijanis and the current approach to bilateral relations is no longer working. While Russia has suffered heavy reputational losses, lost the trust of its partners, betrayed Syrian dictator Bashar Assad and Iran, and is unable to achieve serious results in the war against Ukraine, Azerbaijan seems not only more confident in regional politics, but also reaches the level that Soviet politicians feared in the late 1980s.
The current situation in the South Caucasus is unlikely to escalate into a heated phase, Russia does not have the forces to conduct the so-called “special military operation“ against Azerbaijan.
Russia has once again shown its true face, distorted by the grimace of racism and religious intolerance. And this happens almost always when a quasi-empire feels insecure.
And today Azerbaijan is one of the first to so actively oppose this form of blackmail and violence.