[Tee tiong huat]

Azerbaijan is openly challenging Russia’s influence, dismantling cultural ties & arresting Russian journalists, what it calls a crackdown on foreign interference. 

Once a close partner of Kremlin, Baku now presents itself as a regional actor no longer willing to tolerate what it sees as Russian manipulation, signaling a deeper shift that could redraw alliances in the post-Soviet space.


Azerbaijan’s recent moves amount to a full-blown political rupture. Russian cultural events in Baku have been cancelled. A planned visit by Russia’s deputy culture minister was abruptly scrapped. Seven Russian journalists, most working for Sputnik and Ruptly, were arrested and accused of being foreign agents. According to Azerbaijani officials, these individuals were either gathering intelligence or shaping narratives to serve Kremlin interests. Russia denies this, calling them legitimate journalists, but the clash did not come out of nowhere. Russian police recently raided Azerbaijani-run businesses and marketplaces in Yekaterinburg, Voronezh, & other cities, with Russian law enforcement describing raids as part of a long-overdue effort to dismantle ethnic organized crime networks. 

1. However soon after, multiple Azerbaijani detainees died in Russian custody, from heart failure or embolisms. Azerbaijani media & the victims’ families accused the Russian police of torture. But this is not just about the dead; it is what they represent. For Azerbaijan, this became the final straw, an excuse to accelerate a break been in the making for a long time. The response was swift and public. Azerbaijani state television aired segments comparing Putin to Stalin, echoed across social media, official statements, & cultural commentary. The arrests of Sputnik journalists were not just retaliation; they were a signal that Baku no longer sees Russian media influence as tolerable. Regardless of whether these Russian journalists were spies or not, their license to operate had been revoked since February already, as Azerbaijan is actively reclaiming its narrative space. The presence of Russian state media has long shaped public opinion and influenced election outcomes in neighboring states, making its removal not just symbolic but strategically significant for Baku. Russian officials have called Baku’s crackdown a form of genocide and framed it as Russophobia, echoing long-standing Kremlin narratives that portray any resistance to Russian influence as ethnic or cultural persecution.
   

This hard pivot has a long runway: for years, * Azerbaijan has been moving westward. It buys military equipment from Turkey and other NATO-linked suppliers. It fought the 2020 Second Nagorno-Karabakh War against Russia’s former ally, Armenia, and its 2023 offensive further pushed the limits of Moscow’s ability to intervene in the southern Caucasus. And it is not just military moves, Baku has also cultivated quiet ties with Ukraine, supplying fuel and, through third parties, weapons. During the Russian police raids and Azerbaijani response, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky even called his Azerbaijani counterpart, Ilham Aliyev, to express his support against Russian interference in Azerbaijan. It was a small gesture with big implications: Kyiv sees Baku as a partner in undermining Russia’s grip on its neighbors, preventing millions from choosing their own path forward.

Russia appears overstretched: the war in Ukraine continues to demand their full attention, resulting in its geopolitical influence slipping through their fingers. In Central Asia, the South Caucasus, and even other parts of Eastern Europe, former allies are increasingly asserting their own paths. Azerbaijan’s actions are part of that larger story, as ten years ago, open defiance, targeting Russian narratives, and rejecting cultural diplomacy would have been unthinkable; however, now they are being implemented as necessary self-defense. With U.S. President Donald Trump recently revealing that Russian territorial ambitions extend far beyond just Ukraine, Azerbaijan’s decision to cut ties now is preemptive. Notably, Russian media is now already questioning the legitimacy of Azerbaijani statehood while trying to fuel ethnic tensions among Azerbaijani minorities. If the war in Ukraine ends, Russia may likely seek to reassert itself somewhere else; for Azerbaijan, drawing a line early is a way of...

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