27 July 2025

Why Azerbaijan Is Turning Away from Moscow

Taras Kuzio

The deterioration in Azerbaijan’s relations with Russia has led to a deep crisis in relations between the two countries that is unprecedented since the dissolution of the USSR in 1991. This article explores the multifaceted and deep roots of a crisis that came to the forefront with Russia’s shooting down of Azerbaijan Airline Flight 8243 in December 2024 and recent mass arrests and killings of Azerbaijanis in Russia.

The Azerbaijani-Russian crisis needs to be understood within five interrelated contexts.
Why Is Azerbaijan Angry with Russia?The first is that we should not be surprised at Russia’s dismal treatment of its neighbors. Democratic and imperialistic Russians have both viewed the former Soviet space, Eurasia, as Russia’s exclusive sphere of influence, where the Kremlin does not tolerate UN peacekeepers, outside powers, NATO membership, or EU membership. As Putin recently said, ’There’s an old rule that wherever a Russian soldier sets foot, that’s ours.’

The second is that Russian leaders do not view their neighbors, who, together with Russia, constituted the USSR, as fully sovereign states. The roots of the Azerbaijani-Russian crisis lie in Baku’s insistence that Moscow treat it as an equal and not as a subordinate. Vasif Huseynov wrote that Azerbaijan was ’no longer willing to tolerate Russia’s perceived arrogance and imperial tone.’The third is that, as I have written in The National Interest, only Russia and Armenia refused to abide by the December 1991 Alma-Ata Declaration, where post-Soviet era republican boundaries became international borders. Armenia’s irredentism towards Azerbaijan came to an end in 2020, when it was defeated in the Second Karabakh War, and in 2023, when it lost Karabakh.

The fourth is that Moscow has lost its main budgetary revenue after Europe ended the purchase of Russian energy following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Azerbaijan is one of several countries, including Norway and the US, that have stepped in to supply Europe with energy.Further, Kyiv and Baku signed a vast number of agreements, including Ukraine offering its ample gas storage, ironically built during the Soviet era, in Western Ukraine for the storage of Azerbaijani gas to be supplied to Europe. Ukraine’s infrastructure could be used for Azerbaijani gas transported to Europe through the South Caucasus Pipeline (SCP) and the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP).

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