Sputnik Editors Held as Russia-Azerbaijan Spat Over Police Deaths Widens

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Updated Jul 2, 2025, 02:12 AM

Azerbaijan deepened its crackdown on Russian interests by jailing the head of Sputnik’s local bureau, Igor Kartavykh, and editor-in-chief Yevgeny Belousov for four months after a police raid on the Kremlin-backed outlet’s Baku office. The Interior Ministry said the seven staff members taken into custody are being investigated for fraud, illegal entrepreneurship and money-laundering, alleging the branch continued to operate with illicit funding after losing its accreditation in February.

Moscow denounced the arrests as “unfriendly” and summoned Azerbaijani Ambassador Rahman Mustafayev, handing him a protest note that demands the immediate release of the journalists. Baku, for its part, has opened a criminal case into the alleged torture-related deaths of two Azerbaijani brothers during a June 27 police operation in Yekaterinburg and has cancelled all Russian state and private cultural events in the country.

The dispute has triggered tit-for-tat law-enforcement moves. Azerbaijani authorities on 1 July jailed eight Russian nationals on drug-smuggling and cyber-fraud charges, while Russian security services detained prominent Azerbaijani community figures Yusif Khalilov in Voronezh and Shahin Shykhlinsky in Yekaterinburg. With mutual arrests mounting and diplomatic notes exchanged in both capitals, relations between the former allies have sunk to their lowest point in years, adding a new layer of volatility to the South Caucasus.

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