# Azerbaijan police raid Sputnik office in Baku amid worsening tensions with Moscow
Police in Azerbaijan’s capital have searched the offices of Sputnik, the Russian state-funded news outlet, in a raid that highlights the worsening standoff between Moscow and Baku.
According to the Associated Press, Azerbaijani officials said the outlet had continued operating through what they called illegal financing even after its official accreditation was revoked in February 2025. Arrests were made during the search, though the ministry did not immediately provide details. Local media images showed masked police taking away two men identified by Russian state media as Sputnik Azerbaijan’s editor-in-chief, Yevgeny Belousov, and its director, Igor Kartavykh.
The raid followed a wave of anger in Azerbaijan over the deaths of two ethnic Azerbaijanis during a Russian police operation in Yekaterinburg. Authorities in Baku said Russian officers had carried out targeted violence against Azerbaijanis, and the deaths triggered official protests, canceled visits and the suspension of cultural events tied to Russian institutions.
In Moscow, Azerbaijan’s ambassador was summoned to the foreign ministry after the raid. Russian officials said they had been notified of what they described as the illegal detention of Russian journalists. The Kremlin, meanwhile, struck a restrained tone, with spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying he regretted Baku’s decision to cancel events but insisting Moscow would continue explaining the police action in Yekaterinburg.
The dispute is part of a broader deterioration in relations that has been building for months. Azerbaijan already has reasons to distrust Moscow after a passenger jet crash in December 2024, which Azerbaijani officials said was hit by fire from the ground as it approached Grozny. President Ilham Aliyev accused Russia of trying to cover up what happened, while President Vladimir Putin apologized for what he called a tragic incident without accepting responsibility.
That history matters because it gives the latest raid a larger geopolitical context. This is not a single media dispute, but another episode in a relationship strained by deaths, accusations of mistreatment and public retaliation. The closure of concerts, festivals and exhibitions shows how quickly diplomatic disputes are now spilling into cultural and media exchanges.
The AP report notes that tensions intensified after Russian police raids in Yekaterinburg led to the deaths of Ziyaddin and Huseyn Safarov and the detention of nine people. Azerbaijan said it expected accountability, while Russian investigators said one death was linked to heart failure and promised medical examinations for the bodies.
For now, the raid on Sputnik is both a law-enforcement action and a political signal. It shows that Baku is willing to target Russian institutions inside Azerbaijan as the dispute deepens, and it leaves Moscow trying to defend its position while insisting the two countries still have an interest in maintaining relations.
