Ilham Aliev refuses to travel to Moscow for Victory Parade

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliev will not fly to Moscow for the festive events dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the Victory, the Russian presidential aide reports. Amid growing tensions in the Russian-Azerbaijani relations, an Ilham Aliev’s visit to Moscow would be critically perceived by the Azerbaijani society, a “Caucasian Knot” blogger notes.

Ilham Aliev gives priority to participation in events in his country

The information about the Azerbaijani president’s refusal to participate in the Victory Day events in Moscow has been published by the Azerbaijani “APA” agency with reference to Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov.

“We received a message that Ilham Aliev will not fly to Moscow, unfortunately. They explained that he must take part in domestic events dedicated to Heydar Aliev,” the publication quotes Yuri Ushakov as stating.

The Ilham Aliev’s recent visit to Russia was in the autumn of 2024, when he arrived in Moscow for talks with Vladimir Putin. The central topic of the meeting was the settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict. The Vladimir Putin’s recent visit to Azerbaijan took place on August 18-19, 2024. During the meeting in Baku, the presidents discussed the development of bilateral relations.

Moscow-Baku relations noticeably worsen in 2025

In early February, at the request of the Azerbaijani Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), the activities of the “Russian House” (a representative office of the Federal Agency for the Commonwealth of Independent States Affairs, Compatriots Living Abroad, and International Humanitarian Cooperation, also known as “Rossotrudnichestvo”) in Baku were terminated, and the Kremlin called that fact a “misunderstanding.” Later, in February, the representative office of the Russian media group “Rossiya Segodnya” (Russia Today) in Azerbaijan, which operated under the name of “Sputnik Azerbaijan”, was liquidated. Azerbaijani and Russian analysts claimed that the Baku’s demand to close the “Russian House” became a way to put pressure on Moscow, seeking Russia’s admission of guilt in the crash of the “Azerbaijan Airlines” (AZAL) plane and the payment of compensation.

On February 20, leading media outlets in Azerbaijan were subjected to a large-scale cyber attack. On May 2, Ramid Namazov, the head of the commission on countering external interference and hybrid threats in the Azerbaijani parliament, claimed that the attack was organized by a Russian cyber espionage group.

On December 25, 2024, an Embraer-190 aircraft of the “Azerbaijan Airlines” (AZAL), flying from Baku to Grozny, crashed in Kazakhstan. There were 62 passengers and five crew members on board. Of them, only 29 people survived. After the plane crash, diplomatic relations between Moscow and Baku acquired a negative connotation, states the article entitled “Geopolitical confrontation: what the crash of the AZAL plane led to”.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on May 7, 2025 at 08:45 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.