Azerbaijan and Russia in Diplomatic Dance: Sputnik Editors Release After Plane Crash Admission

Azerbaijan has released the local bureau chief of the Russian state-owned news agency Sputnik following high-level talks with Moscow, as reported by the Kommersant business newspaper on Thursday, referencing remarks from Kremlin foreign policy adviser Yury Ushakov.

Dmitry Kiselyov, who heads Sputnik’s parent company, subsequently clarified that Igor Kartavykh, the editor-in-chief of Sputnik Azerbaijan, has been transferred from police custody to house arrest in Baku. It remains uncertain whether he still faces any criminal charges.

Kartavykh and his deputy were detained in June after Azerbaijani authorities conducted a raid on the Sputnik Azerbaijan office, alleging that the news outlet was involved in “illegal financing.” Russia has denied these allegations.

Ushakov informed Kommersant that Russia had released an Azerbaijani citizen who had been detained previously. An unnamed source later revealed to the newspaper that Russian authorities had freed Mamedali Agayev, the former director of the Moscow Academic Satire Theater.

These arrests occurred against a backdrop of heightened tensions between Moscow and Baku, aggravated by the December 2024 incident involving the downing of an Azerbaijani Airlines passenger flight. The aircraft, which was en route from Baku to Grozny in Chechnya, vanished from radar over the Caspian Sea and later crashed near Aktau in Kazakhstan, resulting in the deaths of 38 individuals on board.

On Thursday, President Vladimir Putin acknowledged for the first time that Russia bore responsibility for the crash, informing Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev during a meeting in Tajikistan that two Russian anti-air missiles had detonated near the jet during a Ukrainian drone strike in Grozny.