Azerbaijan Accuses Russia of "Political Blackmail"

Azerbaijani MP Mushfig Jafarov has accused Russia of deliberately pressuring the country. According to him, raids and murders of Azerbaijanis in Russia are not accidental.

Jafarov said that Russian special services and authorities are using Azerbaijanis as an instrument of political blackmail, and explanations about "fighting crime" are a lie.

In addition, former Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan Tofik Zulfugarov noted that Russia, against the backdrop of failures in Ukraine, is trying to create new "enemies", including Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan. He expects continued propaganda pressure and pointed to a strong alliance with Turkey, which, in his opinion, allows Russia to protect itself from a military threat, emphasizing the lack of strength for Russia to open a second front.

In Russia, cases of persecution of leaders of the Azerbaijani diaspora have become more frequent. Thus, the head of the Azerbaijani diaspora in the Chelyabinsk region, Arshad Khankishiyev, was deprived of Russian citizenship. In addition, Yusif Khalilov, the leader of the Azerbaijani diaspora in Voronezh, was arrested. Earlier, the head of the diaspora in the Sverdlovsk region, Shahin Shykhlinsky, was left under arrest.

Recall that on June 27 in Yekaterinburg, employees of the Russian Guard, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the FSB detained citizens of Azerbaijan and persons of Azerbaijani origin. They were suspected of involvement in previously committed crimes. Some of them were tortured, two died - these are 60-year-old Guseyn Safarov and his brother, 55-year-old Ziyaddin Safarov. Baku also noted that other detainees were tortured. Six people were sent to pretrial detention. Subsequently, the Prosecutor General's Office of Azerbaijan opened a criminal case on the fact of torture and premeditated murder with particular cruelty of two citizens of the country and persons of Azerbaijani origin by law enforcement officers of Russia.

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