FSB releases video of Azerbaijani detained in Stavropol

The footage shows a young man, who identified himself after his arrest as a native of Mingechevir, swearing allegiance to a certain "national liberation battalion".

As "Kavkazsky Uzel" wrote, this morning it became known that security forces in Stavropol detained an Azerbaijani citizen in a case of preparing a terrorist attack. According to the FSB, he was preparing terrorist attacks in Yessentuki and Stavropol on orders from a Ukrainian terrorist organization, planning to use the experience he gained while serving in the special forces of the armed forces of Azerbaijan.

The FSB Public Relations Center has published a video of an Azerbaijani citizen detained in Stavropol Krai, whom security officials called "a foreign specialist in the service of the Armed Forces of Ukraine." The recording, which is almost five minutes long, contains footage of the young man's detention, his interrogation, as well as footage of the "oath" he allegedly gave to the Ukrainian armed unit.

The recording shows that the young man was detained on the street by at least nine security officials in civilian clothes, some of them wearing masks. When asked: "Why were you detained?" the young man does not answer. The detainee's face is hidden in the recording. Then the video shows how the security forces come to search a residential building and saw out the door of the apartment.

“I am a citizen of the Republic of Azerbaijan, born in the city of Mingechevir, came to the city of Stavropol in 2025 to earn money and at the same time met a representative of terrorist organizations of Ukraine. In order to prove my loyalty to him, I recorded an oath,” the detainee says on camera.

The footage of the “oath” in question is edited into the recording. “I voluntarily join the ranks of the National Liberation Battalion of Ukraine, I solemnly swear that I will honestly fight with all the means at my disposal,” the man says in the video (verbatim - note from “Caucasian Knot”).

Then the recording of the detainee's confession is shown again. "And I conducted reconnaissance of state facilities of the Russian... Stavropol Territory. Later, I bought components for homemade explosives, after which we wanted to commit terrorist acts in the Stavropol Territory," he says.

From the dialogue between the detainee and the security officer, it follows that the man acted on the instructions of a certain Oleg, buying components for explosives at the market in Yessentuki. He hid the purchased components in a hiding place near a sunflower field. The video then shows the security officers bringing the detainee to the field, where he shows them the hiding place. Among the seized items are a box of bolts, a cord, sealant, adhesive tape and other items.

At the end of the story, footage is shown from the Yessentuki City Court, where the detainee is taken. The judge read out the ruling: to place the suspect in custody for two months until November 5, 2025.

Relations between Moscow and Baku have noticeably worsened after an Azerbaijan Airlines plane with 67 people on board crashed in Kazakhstan on December 25, 2024, flying from Baku to Grozny. You can read more about this in the "Caucasian Knot" reference "Baku-Grozny flight crash" and in the material "Geopolitical confrontation: what did the AZAL plane crash lead to".

A new round of deterioration in relations between the two countries was the ethnic raids in Russia and the retaliatory detentions of Russians in Azerbaijan. Baku accuses the Russian authorities of extrajudicial reprisals against Azerbaijanis, and footage of the brutal detention of Russians in Baku looks like a demonstrative response to Moscow's actions, according to the "Caucasian Knot" report "Crisis in Relations between Azerbaijan and Russia".

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