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8h ago

Azerbaijan Detains Sputnik Journalists, Deepening Diplomatic Rift With Russia

Baku hopes to pressure Moscow for accountability over the killing of two Azerbaijani citizens during police raids in Yekaterinburg.

FILE - The Old City stands with the Flame Towers skyscrapers in background in Baku, Azerbaijan, June 13, 2021. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic, File)
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FILE - Workers carry a coffin with the body of a victim from the Azerbaijani Airlines crash near the Kazakhstani city of Aktau, at the Heydar Aliyev International Airport outside Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 28, 2024. (AP Photo, File)
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Overview

  • Police raided the Baku offices of Sputnik Azerbaijan on June 30 and arrested two senior journalists during an investigation into alleged illegal funding and operations after its February license revocation.
  • Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry has demanded an independent probe into the June 27 Yekaterinburg raids in which two ethnic Azerbaijani brothers were killed, several were injured and nine were detained.
  • Russia’s Investigative Committee defends the Yekaterinburg operation as part of a decades-old murder inquiry and says one death was due to heart failure while the cause of the second is still under examination.
  • The Culture Ministry canceled all Russian cultural events and Azerbaijan’s parliament withdrew from bilateral talks, including a planned visit by Deputy Prime Minister Alexey Overchuk, in protest of the killings.
  • EU Ambassador Peter Michalko publicly condemned reports of violence, torture and inhuman treatment of ethnic Azerbaijanis by Russian security forces in Yekaterinburg.