Already Shaky, Russia–Azerbaijan Relations Worsen Amid Tit-for-Tat Arrests

Bilateral ties have been frosty since last December, when Baku accused Russian forces of accidentally downing an Azerbaijani commercial airliner.
Already Shaky, Russia–Azerbaijan Relations Worsen Amid Tit-for-Tat Arrests
Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev meet at the Kremlin on April 22, 2024. Gavriil Grigorov, Sputnik, Kremlin Photo via AP
|Updated:
0:00

Simmering tensions between Moscow and Azerbaijan boiled over this week when authorities in Baku, Azerbaijan’s capital, arrested two journalists from Russia’s state news agency Sputnik, along with several other Russian nationals.

The Russian Foreign Ministry responded by summoning Azerbaijan’s ambassador to voice its displeasure with what it called Baku’s “unfriendly actions” and the “illegal detention of Russian journalists,” according to Russia’s news agency TASS.