The Kremlin announced on Wednesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev are collaborating to “turn the page” in their countries’ relations.
Tensions had begun to diminish earlier in October when Putin reiterated his apology and for the first time acknowledged to Aliyev that Russian anti-aircraft missiles caused the downing of an Azerbaijani Airlines passenger plane in December 2024. Relations between Russia and Azerbaijan deteriorated following Moscow’s initial attempts to evade responsibility for this tragic incident.
In response, Azerbaijan undertook several actions perceived as retaliatory, such as detaining eight Russian individuals accused of cyber crimes and drug trafficking, allegedly linked to organized crime.
“The results of the meeting between the two presidents in Dushanbe [Tajikistan] are of great importance to us. It represented a significant advancement toward resolving the issues in our bilateral ties,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov informed reporters on Wednesday.
This statement followed a decision by a Baku court on Tuesday to extend the pre-trial detention of the eight Russian nationals for an additional three months, starting November 1.
Moscow has yet to publicly address the recent court decision.
Peskov mentioned that during the discussions with Aliyev on October 9 in Tajikistan, Putin “brought up all the sensitive matters” regarding the arrest of Russian citizens.
Following that meeting, Azerbaijan released the local bureau chief of the state-controlled news outlet Sputnik.
On Friday, a Baku court ordered that one of the detained Sputnik Azerbaijan journalists be placed under house arrest for three months.
“Discussions regarding the arrests of Russian nationals in Azerbaijan are ongoing at the expert level,” Peskov stated.
The Azerbaijan Airlines flight, which was transporting 62 passengers and five crew members from Baku to Russia’s Chechnya on December 25, disappeared from radar before crashing in Kazakhstan, resulting in the deaths of 38 individuals onboard.
Initially, Russian officials provided mixed accounts of the incident, suggesting that either poor visibility or a bird strike had caused the crash, later claiming that air defense systems were targeting Ukrainian drones in the vicinity.
In February, Kazakhstan released a 53-page report indicating that “external objects” impacted the aircraft, leading to a loss of hydraulic fluid and pressure, which subsequently caused the stabilizer to fail. Russian civil aviation authorities noted that they had not been granted complete access to the crash site.
Putin informed Aliyev this month that the investigation into the crash is approaching its conclusion.
