Brotherly to bruising. Russia and Azerbaijan swap raids in spiraling diplomatic feud after two men die in Yekaterinburg

What happened

On June 27, Russian security forces detained dozens of people of Azerbaijani descent in the major Urals city of Yekaterinburg. The operation was officially linked to a long-running investigation into murders and attempted murders allegedly committed by an “ethnic criminal group” between 2001 and 2011.

During the raids, Guseyn and Ziyaddin Safarov, two brothers who owned a local café, died. Russia’s Investigative Committee, later stated that the preliminary cause of one death was heart failure, while the cause of the second is still being established. However, relatives and Azerbaijani officials have alleged the men were tortured.

Other detainees subsequently appeared in court with visible injuries. One man, Ayaz Safarov, had severe bruising on his face; another, Mazahir Safarov, said he suffered broken ribs. At least three other men were reportedly hospitalised following the detentions, with one, Kamal Safarov, said to be in intensive care.

Oxu.Az later published photos of two heavily bruised Azeri men who were released after questioning.

The Yekaterinburg court has since placed three men, Mazahir, Ayaz and Akif Safarov, in pre-trial detention. According to the local news outlet E1, which broke many details of the story, as many as 15 people are being investigated in connection with the case, including nine brothers from the Safarov family. Legal proceedings are also underway for at least three other named suspects: Akhliman Ganjiyev, Shahin Lalayev and Bakir Safarov.

The initial response

The events provoked a furious response in Azerbaijan.

On June 30, police in the capital, Baku, raided the office of Sputnik, a Russian state news agency. Officials justified the operation by claiming the agency had continued to work despite its local branch being formally shut down in February.

Azerbaijani media later reported that two employees, executive director Igor Kartavykh and editor-in-chief Yevgeny Belousov, had been detained, alleging they were agents for the FSB, Russia’s main security service, working under journalistic cover.

In another apparently retaliatory move, Azerbaijan’s food safety authority announced it had impounded and ordered the destruction of a 639-kilogram shipment of contaminated onion rings from the major Russian food producer, Miratorg. The tactic mirrors the one used by Russia itself to destroy banned Western food imports following the international sanctions over its 2014 annexation of Crimea.

Meanwhile, Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry called the FSB raid “unacceptable violence.” In protest, Azerbaijan cancelled all planned concerts and exhibitions involving Russian state and private institutions and called off planned visit to Moscow by a parliamentary delegation. 

Russia countered that the detained individuals are Russian citizens and that the raids were part of a legitimate criminal investigation.

Following the Sputnik raid, Russia’s foreign ministry in turn summoned the Azerbaijani ambassador to protest the “unfriendly actions” and the “illegal detention of Russian journalists”.

More violence and arrests

The diplomatic feud between Russia and Azerbaijan has escalated in the hours since this report was first published

A Baku court has now formally arrested local Sputnik branch’s director, Igor Kartavykh, and editor-in-chief, Yevgeny Belousov, for four months on charges of fraud, illegal entrepreneurship, and money laundering. Local media had previously described the men as “FSB agents” working under cover.

Azerbaijan’s Interior Ministry announced the special operation against two “gangs from Russia.” In an apparent response to FSB brutality in Yekaterinburg, local media distributed photos of the detained Russian men with severe bruising, bloodied clothing and facial injuries. They’ve been forced to do a perp walk on bent knees in a humiliating video footage.

Haqqin.az reports they’ve been charged with drug trafficking from Iran, selling drugs online and cyber fraud. Eight of the brutalised men were taken to court to be placed under arrest.

IStories had established that at least two of the men in the footage are Russian IT professionals who have relocated abroad amid full-scale invasion of Ukraine. They are Anton Drachev, a 41-year-old founder of the Airo startup, and Dmitry Bezugly, a 30-year-old programmer who had worked at VK and Yandex. The faces of the other detainees are too swollen from beatings, making them difficult to identify at this time. The Azerbaijani authorities are not disclosing their names.

Meanwhile, the Russian crackdown in the Urals continues to widen. Today, security forces in Yekaterinburg detained Shahin Shikhlinski, the head of the “Azerbaijan-Ural” diaspora organization. Officers smashed the car window to make the arrest. Shikhlinski, who had been briefly detained on June 27, was taken to the Investigative Committee for questioning as a witness.

Update on July 1. This article has been updated to include details of further retaliatory arrests.