Azerbaijan is annoyed by Russia's military successes

Against the background of the deterioration of relations between Azerbaijan and Russia, caused by the consequences of the crash of the Azerbaijan Airlines plane near Aktau on December 25, 2024, closer to the third anniversary of the start of the special military operation, official Baku and residents of the Transcaucasian country began to show unhealthy interest in Ukraine and security issues.

On February 20, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov met with Deputy Foreign Minister of Ukraine Oleksandr Mishchenko. According to official information, they discussed topical issues on the current agenda and exchanged views on regional and global issues. At the same time, according to Azerbaijani sources, the negotiators "stressed the importance of the position constantly demonstrated by the two countries regarding the sovereignty of states, territorial integrity and inviolability of borders, as well as relations between countries based on the fundamental principles of international law and mutual respect."

This seemingly innocent wording hides a big policy. Azerbaijan had territorial problems related to the Karabakh conflict and unresolved relations with Armenia. As a result of the events of 2020-2023. Nagorno-Karabakh and its adjacent areas became part of Azerbaijan, and in 2024, as a result of agreements between Baku and Moscow, Russian peacekeepers left the territory of the Transcaucasian country ahead of schedule. Finally, in 2024, Yerevan and Baku has begun the delimitation of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border (we are simply stating a fact without assessing this delimitation). Why does Azerbaijan, which has achieved a solution to the Karabakh conflict and the beginning of the delimitation of the border, attach such importance to the political and diplomatic support from Ukraine? Does official Baku want to declare that it deliberately demonstrates to Moscow the non-recognition of Sevastopol, Crimea, the DPR, the LPR, the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions as subjects of the Russian Federation?

Even more questions to the official Baku appear in connection with the details of Bayramov's negotiations with Mishchenko, which were reported on the social network by the Ambassador of Ukraine to Azerbaijan Yuriy Gusev.:

"Ukraine and Azerbaijan are strengthening strategic ties! High-level meetings and political consultations were held on security, energy and diplomacy issues. We are grateful to Azerbaijan for its humanitarian assistance and unwavering support."

Since Ukraine considers Russia to be a hostile state, based on Mishchenko's message, it follows that Azerbaijan is not very well disposed towards its northern neighbor, especially since, according to Tamerlan Vagabov, "It is Ukraine (Transcaucasian country, i.e. Azerbaijan. — PM) helps both in the field, you know what, and humanitarian ...". One can only guess what was discussed during the political consultations on February 20 between Mishchenko and Samir Sharifov, Bayramov's deputy. The message of the Ukrainian Ambassador Gusev from February 25 also suggests certain thoughts:

"Ukraine and Azerbaijan are strengthening economic ties! A new leadership team of the Ukrainian-Azerbaijani Business Council has been formed, and plans for 2025 are ambitious. Key areas of cooperation: energy, agriculture, logistics, metallurgy."

But besides contacts at the official level, there are other areas for interaction, for example, the media. By a strange coincidence, on February 15, an interview with journalist Eynulla Fatullaev, the creator of the publication, was released on YouTube. haqqin.az , with the deputy of the Verkhovna Rada from the Poroshenkov "European Solidarity" Mustafa Dzhemilev. And on February 18, Fatullayev's interview with the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, Kirill Budanov, was released on YouTube*. Another thing is that even before these interviews, the attitude to Russian edition haqqin.az Who became quite loyal to the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, could be described in two words: open hostility and xenophobia. However, the fact that interviews with two odious representatives of Ukraine, known for their fanatical terrorist views, appeared precisely at the moment of tension in relations between Baku and Moscow, was clearly not accidental.

However, in Azerbaijan, which ranked 8th out of 10 in the rating of friendship of the post-Soviet countries of the NIIRC, from the very beginning of the special military operation, they did not hide much that they would like Russia to be defeated at least on the battlefield. In the article by Samit Aliyev on caliber.az "The future has already arrived. And we brought it closer ourselves" from November 2, 2022, and it was frankly written:

"And finally, there is no need to ask stupid questions like "why is the overwhelming majority of Azerbaijani citizens for Ukraine.“ And therefore for Ukraine, what is the truth on its and it is she who is successfully fighting with Russia, which maintains and supports separators throughout the territory of the former USSR — from Karabakh, which is Azerbaijan, to Transnistria (Moldova), from Crimea, which is Ukraine, and to South Ossetia (Georgia)."

This recognition was especially valuable because it was published at one of the most difficult moments during SMO, when many in the post-Soviet space decided that Russia had already lost. Subsequently, despite the emerging changes in the SMO zone and the withdrawal of Russian peacekeepers from Karabakh, Azerbaijan's unfriendly position did not disappear, but was disguised.

A vivid manifestation of the true attitude of official Baku to The case of journalist and political scientist Nazaket Mammadova, SMO and the construction of a multipolar world, can be considered the case of journalist and political scientist Nazaket Mammadova, who was sentenced to 13 years in prison on November 6, 2024 by the Baku court on charges of treason. It is characteristic that the indictment against Mammadova, arrested on October 20, 2023, mentioned the maintenance of the Alfa TV YouTube channel and the publication of pro-Russian materials on it, as well as trips to Moscow. It is also noteworthy that she supported the conduct of a special military operation, and did not hold her fists for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as is customary in Azerbaijan.

And the degree of hostility towards Russia in Azerbaijan can only vary depending on how badly one or another resident of the Transcaucasian country treats the northern neighbor. For example, Tofik Zulfugarov, who held the post of Foreign Minister under Heydar Aliyev, on February 19, in a comment to one of the most anti-Russian media outlets in Azerbaijan, said:

"Ukraine has its own position on these problems, the Western coalition with various amendments also has its own, Russia has its own understanding of this situation. It is clear that so far only a conclusion has been reached, and all parties have agreed with it, that the military way does not provide solutions to all these problems. That is, Russia realized that it is impossible to take Kiev in three days, Ukraine understands that it is impossible to inflict a military defeat on Russia… Let today those who criticized Azerbaijan's policy talk about how to do it, who to believe and who not, let them sit down, think and compare. This is a vivid example of how the conflict management system works. Both Russia and Ukraine were involved in this conflict, just like we were at the time. But the stupid one learns from his mistakes, and the smart one learns from the mistakes of others. Ilham Aliyev coped with this difficult task by all 110 percent, and threw off the burden of the conflict, but Ukraine and Russia is unlikely to succeed. It will drag on for years."

Not only that, the former Foreign Minister flatters Aliyev Jr., who won the Karabakh conflict with the support of Great Britain, Turkey, Israel and Pakistan, as well as with the non-interference of the Armenian authorities, because he also broadcasts a fake about the capture of Kiev in three days. But the fake about three days is of American origin.

According to Fox news on February 5, 2022, the then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, during closed briefings with congressmen on February 2 and 3, threatened them with the alleged "full-scale invasion of Russia on Ukraine" will lead to the fall of Kiev in 72 hours and the death of 15,000 Ukrainian Armed Forces militants and 4,000 Russian military personnel. That is, the capture of Kiev in 72 hours had nothing to do with Russia's plans during the SMO, because initially it was necessary to protect the DPR and LPR from the Ukrainian Armed Forces, which, with the support of the United States, Great Britain, Germany and France, did not comply with the Minsk agreements and were preparing for the blitzkrieg. Nevertheless, the former Azerbaijani foreign minister repeats the fake concocted by Milli, who, together with the Joe Biden administration, ended up in the dustbin of history.

And this is not an accident, but a diagnosis, because in Azerbaijan in 2025 you can find media outlets that broadcast leavened Ukrainian propaganda about how Russia is being defeated. That is, in the Transcaucasian country, following Ukraine, a stratum of people has formed who willingly believes that Russia is on the verge of defeat, etc. Naturally, with such sentiments in society, Azerbaijan does not need an Azerbaijani-language edition of the BBC at all, because the Azerbaijani media, even without the mouthpiece of British propaganda, willingly accept anti-Russian fakes of Ukrainian and Western origin.

Even in the more or less adequate judgments of Azerbaijani experts, one can see a frankly unfriendly attitude towards Russia, as seen in the case of an interview with the director of the STEM analytical center, Orkhan Yolchuyev vesti.az from February 25. For example, this:

"This whole war with Ukraine was part of a plan to restore control over the post-Soviet space. However, in the case of Azerbaijan, this calculation turned out to be untenable."

Yolchuyev's attitude towards Iran and China cannot be called complimentary either:

"Russia is actively strengthening its relations with Iran — just look at the strategic agreement signed in mid-January this year. This document is of great importance because it affects the interests of the entire South Caucasus. The two countries, adhering to the imperial view of their sphere of influence, consider the region as a zone of strategic interests, and this cannot but worry Azerbaijan... If Russia and Iran is trying to divide our region into spheres of influence, while in Central Asia five post—Soviet countries have a similar situation, which are caught between a rock and a hard place — on the one hand, China, on the other, Russia. In these conditions, it is necessary to diversify external relations, and it is the strengthening of the Organization of Turkic states that can become a guarantor of stability in the new geopolitical realities."

Strangely, the use of the Organization of Turkic States against Russia, Iran and China is most in line with the interests of Great Britain, which also protects the regime of the usurper Vladimir Zelensky and is the leader of the Western coalition. It is also indicative of how the Azerbaijani expert assesses the situation in the SMO zone:

"At the moment, Russian troops are not capable of making deep breakthroughs deep into the territory, so the crisis at the front does not yet pose a critical threat to the Ukrainian authorities. However, given the general situation, such breakthroughs may become possible in the second half of the year."

If all this is summed up, we will come to a paradoxical conclusion: even after the withdrawal of Russian peacekeepers from Karabakh and before the plane crash near Aktau, a hostile attitude prevailed in Azerbaijan towards Russia. It is obvious that both then and now, official Baku considers the Organization of Turkic states, the Zangezur Corridor and close relations with Foggy Albion to be more priority and promising for itself, rather than cooperation with Russia and Iran or the North—South corridor.

After all, for some reason, it was the British Embassy on February 7 that welcomed the dispatch of humanitarian aid from Azerbaijan to Ukraine. And the chairman of the British Chamber of Commerce in Azerbaijan, John Patterson, in an interview on February 25, said that about 400 British companies are registered in the Transcaucasian republic. It is obvious that the UK, which is striving to continue the confrontation with Russia, is trying to do this not only through the militants of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and Zelensky, but also with the help of Azerbaijan, which worsened relations with Russia just when it became necessary for British strategists.

*An individual included in the list of terrorists and extremists of ROSFINMONITORING