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A court in Azerbaijan has sentenced eight Russian citizens to prison terms of three to four years. They were detained in Baku in the summer of 2025 amid a sharp escalation in relations between Azerbaijan and Russia, Azerbaijani news outlet Minval reports.
According to media reports, the defendants were found guilty of smuggling large quantities of drugs from Iran, as well as cybercrimes.
The detentions occurred during a prolonged diplomatic crisis between the two countries, which began after the crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines plane on December 25, 2024, operating a Baku–Grozny flight. The crash resulted in the deaths of 38 people.
Russian President Vladimir Putin later apologized to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev for the incident. In April, Moscow also agreed to pay compensation to the victims and the families of the deceased.
A separate incident occurred in June 2025, shortly before the detention of the Russians: Russian security forces conducted raids on the homes of ethnic Azerbaijanis in the Urals as part of investigations into old criminal cases. During the operation, two brothers — Ziyaddin and Guseyn Safarov — were killed.
All the detained Russian citizens denied the charges. They claimed to be IT specialists with no connection to drug trafficking, linking their prosecution to the political tensions between the two countries.
Following their detention in June 2025, the Russians were publicly shown to the Azerbaijani media. Some of them showed visible signs of injury, prompting allegations of possible police mistreatment.