By AZE.US Editorial Team
The latest confrontation reflects not a single dispute, but a widening strategic divide between Azerbaijan and Russia
Relations between Azerbaijan and Russia have entered another period of tension. There is no single event that can be identified as the immediate trigger.
Instead, the escalation has developed through a series of political, energy and media disputes that, taken together, point to a broader process: Baku and Moscow are steadily moving further apart.
One of the clearest signals came from President Ilham Aliyev during his visit to Germany. Aliyev said Russia was no longer able to supply its traditional customers with the same volumes of petroleum products and declared that Azerbaijan was prepared to expand its presence in the European energy market.
Azerbaijan does not possess the resources to replace all Russian energy supplies. But the practical feasibility of such a scenario was not the central issue. The political message mattered more.
Baku indicated that it views Russia’s declining role in Europe not merely as a geopolitical shift, but also as an economic opportunity. Moscow, which has long used energy exports as an instrument of influence, now faces a situation in which countries it once regarded as belonging to its traditional sphere of interest are prepared to benefit from its retreat.
Such statements are particularly sensitive for the Kremlin. They demonstrate that Russia’s weakening position is no longer seen by its neighbors only as a source of instability. It is increasingly viewed as an opening to pursue their own strategic and commercial interests.
Against this backdrop, the deportation of Bakhtiyar Hasanov, chairman of the Moscow National-Cultural Autonomy of Azerbaijanis, acquired additional political significance. After his Russian citizenship was revoked, Hasanov was detained, placed in a migrant holding facility and expelled from Russia on Aug. 17.
Russian citizenship was also revoked earlier for Shirvan Kerimov, the head of the Azerbaijani community in Russia’s Samara region. The reasons for that decision were not publicly explained.
There is no direct evidence that the measures against the two community leaders were retaliation for Baku’s recent actions. Hasanov’s case had been developing for several months. Still, the sequence of decisions suggests a broader pattern.
Russian authorities have traditionally used migration policy, the status of ethnic communities and access to the Russian market as instruments of political pressure.
If the dispute deepens, additional inspections targeting Azerbaijanis, further deportations and restrictions on Azerbaijani imports under sanitary or administrative pretexts cannot be ruled out.
At the same time, Baku is visibly strengthening its relationship with Kyiv.
In early August, Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov made the first official visit to Ukraine by an Azerbaijani foreign minister since Russia launched its full-scale invasion. He visited Irpin, held talks with Ukrainian officials and confirmed Azerbaijan’s readiness to supply gas to Ukraine if necessary.
Viktor Yushchenko, a former Ukrainian president, later traveled to Baku. During his meeting with Aliyev, the Azerbaijani leader received a certificate naming him an honorary citizen of Irpin, a city that became one of the symbols of Ukrainian resistance following the Russian assault.
The gesture went beyond diplomatic protocol. Azerbaijan is financing reconstruction projects in Irpin, and the honor represented public recognition of Baku’s support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Viewed separately, each of these developments could be described as part of routine diplomacy. Together, however, they deliver a clear political message. Azerbaijan is moving beyond formal declarations of support for Ukraine’s territorial integrity and is giving its relationship with Kyiv greater practical and symbolic weight.
An even more direct statement came from Ukraine’s ambassador to Turkey, Nariman Dzhelyal, who said that “Crimea will be free, just like Karabakh.”
His remarks drew a parallel between Azerbaijan’s restoration of control over Karabakh and Ukraine’s goal of recovering its Russian-occupied territories.
For Moscow, the comparison is unacceptable for reasons extending beyond Ukraine. It presents Azerbaijan’s experience as a model in which a post-Soviet country restores its territorial integrity despite Russia’s position and amid the decline of Russian regional influence.
The media phase of the confrontation has also begun.
On Aug. 17, Azerbaijan’s Prosecutor General’s Office placed three Russian citizens on a wanted list: Moscow 24 television host Ivan Knyazev, political consultant Semyon Uralov and journalist Alexei Chadayev, an adviser to Russia’s transportation minister.
Azerbaijani investigators accuse them of publicly calling for terrorism, the violent alteration of Azerbaijan’s constitutional order and violations of the country’s territorial integrity. Prosecutors said the programs under investigation included discussions of violence against Azerbaijan and the physical elimination of specific individuals.
The following day, Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry summoned Russian Ambassador Mikhail Yevdokimov and delivered a formal protest over threats and insulting statements circulated in Russia’s media environment.
The Azerbaijani statement referred to the “Chistota Ponimaniya” project, Sputnik radio, the Orthodox television channel Spas and material distributed on YouTube.
Moscow may argue that the individuals responsible do not speak for the Russian government. The significance, however, lies not only in the statements themselves but also in the platforms that carry them. When radical rhetoric repeatedly appears in state-owned or government-aligned media, the distinction between private commentary and political signaling becomes difficult to sustain.
The current crisis is therefore not fundamentally about one media scandal or the fate of one diaspora leader. It reflects a growing divergence of strategic interests.
Azerbaijan is building a foreign policy framework in which Russia is no longer the indispensable center of regional decision-making. Baku is expanding ties with Turkey, Ukraine, Europe and the United States while reducing its dependence on Moscow.
This strategy also has a longer-term regional dimension. When the wars in Ukraine and around Iran eventually end, major powers are likely to devote more attention to the South Caucasus. By then, Baku wants the changes of recent years to be as difficult as possible to reverse.
Azerbaijani internally displaced people are returning to Karabakh, while cities, roads, schools and government institutions are being rebuilt. The scale of reconstruction is steadily narrowing the possibility of returning the Karabakh issue to its previous negotiating framework, including through humanitarian arguments.
The same logic applies to relations with Russia. The longer the period of estrangement continues, the more difficult it will be to restore the former arrangement in which Moscow expected special loyalty from Baku in exchange for political stability and economic cooperation.
The next phase will largely depend on Russia. Moscow can seek to reduce tensions through private diplomacy, or it can resort to its familiar pressure tactics: migration restrictions, trade barriers and media attacks.
The second option could create immediate economic and social difficulties for Azerbaijan. Strategically, however, it would produce the opposite of the intended result. The greater the pressure from Moscow, the stronger Baku’s argument for moving further away from it.
Russia is losing influence in the South Caucasus not solely because outside powers are pushing it out. The deeper problem is the Kremlin’s reluctance to recognize the sovereignty and agency of countries it continues to view as part of a post-Soviet periphery.
Regional influence can no longer rest on memories of a shared past or expectations of automatic loyalty. It depends on the ability to offer neighboring states an acceptable future.
So far, Moscow has more often offered discipline than partnership. For Baku, that is not a reason to return. It is another reason to keep moving away.
AZE.US