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Euronews
01-07-2025
- Politics
- Euronews
Azerbaijan jails Sputnik execs amid escalating tensions with Russia
The executive director and editor-in-chief of Russia's state-run news agency Sputnik in Azerbaijan have been sentenced to four months in prison on Tuesday, following a Baku police raid of the Russian state media affiliate the day before, in what appears to be a fast-moving escalation between the two countries. According to Azerbaijan's authorities, they have been found guilty of fraud, illegal entrepreneurship and legalisation of property obtained by criminal means, Baku-based international news channel AnewZ reported. Azeri APA agency reported earlier that two employees of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) were among seven people detained after the raid on the offices of Sputnik Azerbaijan, owned by Rossiya Segodnya, which is in turn owned and operated by the Russian government. Another Russian state-run media outlet, Ruptly, later reported that one of its editors had been detained after attempting to film the police action at the Sputnik offices in Baku. Azerbaijan's Interior Ministry published a video showing officers leading two men to police vans in handcuffs. The tensions between Azerbaijan and Russia escalated over the past few days following the detention of over 50 Azerbaijanis in Yekaterinburg in raids by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) last Friday. Two people — brothers Huseyn and Ziyaddin Safarov — died during the raids, and three others were seriously injured. Russia claimed that the arrests were part of a murder investigation from the early 2000s. Azerbaijan-based broadcaster AnewZ said the news of deadly raids sparked outrage and calls for justice amid what Azerbaijanis allege as abuse and ethnic profiling. Some detainees have alleged that confessions were obtained through force, threats, and coercion, including pressure on family members. Forensic experts have revealed that the Azerbaijani citizens killed during the Russian raids in Yekaterinburg died from blunt force trauma, not gunshot wounds, raising additional questions about the circumstances of the deaths. Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry condemned the operation as 'brutal and unjustified' and called on the Russian authorities to 'conduct an urgent investigation into the matter and bring the perpetrators of this unacceptable violence to justice as soon as possible,' according to AnewZ. In addition, Azerbaijan summoned Russia's envoy to Baku to protest against the deadly raids and also cancelled all cultural events planned by the Russian state and private institutions in protest against the raid on Russia's state-run Sputnik agency offices. "In response to targeted and extrajudicial killings and acts of violence against Azerbaijanis based on their ethnicity, dem onstratively perpetrated by Russian law enforcement agencies in the Yekaterinburg region of the Russian Federation – and considering the systematic nature of such incidents in recent times – all cultural events planned in Azerbaijan involving Russian state and private entities have been cancelled," Azerbaijan's ministry of Culture said in a statement. Russia's state-run agency in Azerbaijan In February, the Azerbaijani government shut down Russia's state-funded news agency, Sputnik, but it has continued to operate, albeit with reduced staff. Although the agency's accreditation was officially revoked in February, the Azerbaijan Interior Ministry stated that its data indicated Sputnik Azerbaijan allegedly continued its activities using illegal funding sources. The director of Sputnik's parent company Rossiya Segodnya, Dmitry Kiselev — one of the most prominent Russian propagandists, who regularly makes open calls to destroy Ukraine and attack Europe with Russian missiles — said Sputnik and Azerbaijani officials had been trying to find a temporary agreement allowing it to keep working in Baku. Sputnik, Ruptly, and other affiliates of Rossiya Segodnya are widely regarded as tools for spreading the Kremlin's propaganda outside of Russia. Kiselev expressed his disconnect over the Monday arrests on Telegram, calling it a 'deliberate step aimed at worsening relations between the countries'. Azerbaijan's parliament has pulled out of planned bilateral talks in Moscow amid the recent escalation and cancelled a visit by a Russian deputy prime minister. Russian authorities denounced the state-run Sputnik office raid and detention as "unfriendly acts by Baku and the illegal arrest of Russian journalists." In additional developments on Tuesday, Azerbaijan's Interior Ministry announced that it dismantled two criminal groups in Baku, detaining Russian nationals suspected of trafficking drugs from Iran and conducting cyber fraud operations. Relations between Moscow and Baku cooled after an Azerbaijani airliner crashed in Kazakhstan in December, killing 38 of 67 people aboard. As exclusively reported by Euronews, investigations into the incident revealed that the Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8243 was shot at by Russian air defence over Russia's Grozny and rendered uncontrollable by electronic warfare. Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev accused Russia of trying to "hush up" the incident for several days. Russian President Vladimir Putin apologised to Aliyev for what he called a "tragic incident" but stopped short of acknowledging responsibility. In May, Aliyev decided not to attend Russia's 80th Victory Day celebrations.
Saba Yemen
30-06-2025
- Politics
- Saba Yemen
Two Crimean residents arrested for passing military data to Ukraine
Moscow - (Saba): The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) announced the arrest of two Crimean residents who had transferred data on the peninsula's military infrastructure and equipment to the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) via Telegram. According to the Russian RT channel, the citizens were recruited by the SBU via Telegram, and the two suspects sent the video footage to a Ukrainian Telegram channel on the instructions of their Ukrainian supervisors. The Investigative Department of the FSB's Crimean and Sevastopol Directorates has opened criminal investigations into charges of "high treason," which carries a penalty of up to 20 years in prison. Later, the FSB released a video of the two Crimean residents arrested on charges of "high treason," confessing that they had passed data on a Russian military site in Yalta to the SBU. Whatsapp Telegram Email Print
Novaya Gazeta Europe
28-06-2025
- Politics
- Novaya Gazeta Europe
Russian court sentences veteran to 18 years in prison for treason for posting anti-war leaflets — Novaya Gazeta Europe
A court in the city of Nizhny Novgorod in central Russia has sentenced a veteran to 18 years in a maximum security penal colony after convicting him of treason, calling for terrorism and the illegal storage of explosives, human rights NGO First Department reported on Friday. According to the investigation, Gennady Artemenko, 57, contacted representatives of the Atesh organisation, a military partisan movement active in occupied areas of Ukraine, which has since been declared a 'terrorist organisation', in the early days of the war. At their behest, according to the prosecution, he received instructions to photograph the Russian Federal Security Service building in the city of Dzerzhinsk and to glue leaflets around the city saying 'Let's stop the war together'. The prosecution was not able to provide any evidence of the correspondence between Artemenko and Atesh, however, First Department said. 'We believe that this trial is politically motivated and is due to Artemenko being ethnically Ukrainian. His mother is in Ukraine, and he tried to get permission for her to be transferred [to Russia] so he could take care of her. Artemenko is not a political activist,' his lawyer told First Department. It is assumed Artemenko's contact with the Ukrainian authorities asking for permission to travel to the country to bring his mother to Russia is what aroused the authorities' suspicions. Artemenko was also given a fine of 350,000 rubles (€3,800) and banned from administering websites for three years.
MTV Lebanon
09-06-2025
- Politics
- MTV Lebanon
Watch: Attempts to smuggle helicopter aviation equipment
The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) confirmed that attempts to obtain weapons and military equipment from Russia in favor of Kyiv are being managed by foreign intelligence agencies and are being planned on a large scale. This statement came after the FSB successfully foiled a plot by an international network specializing in smuggling helicopter aviation equipment out of the country, including to Ukraine. The statement explained that "the number of attempts by unfriendly countries to acquire weapons and military equipment in Russia for Kyiv has reached an unprecedented level." It added: "Losses worth over one billion rubles were prevented as a result of thwarting the illegal export of aircraft spare parts from Russia to Kyiv. We have information indicating that the Ukrainian Air Force is suffering from a severe shortage of Russian components." The FSB emphasized that "Kyiv tried to establish a sustainable smuggling channel for Russian aviation products to fulfill its government defense orders." The statement continued: "Kyiv is in urgent need of spare parts to repair its aerial equipment, which was damaged during Russian military operations as part of the special military operation." It also added: "Since October 1, 2023, 236 illegal export attempts from Russia have been foiled, involving drones, optical equipment, and other gear." This comes after the FSB thwarted a smuggling network working on behalf of foreign entities to purchase new spare parts for Mi-8 and Mi-17 helicopters. A statement from the FSB clarified that the criminal group consisted of six individuals of various nationalities, including Russians, Ukrainians, and citizens from Middle Eastern countries. The statement added: "The activities of the international group were uncovered and their illegal operations halted. They had been planning to smuggle military technical equipment abroad, including to Ukraine." It also noted that the network's operations were coordinated by a foreign woman residing outside Russia.
Saba Yemen
09-06-2025
- Politics
- Saba Yemen
Russian FSB announced thwarting of group attempting to smuggle helicopter equipment into Ukraine
Moscow - Saba: The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) announced on Monday the thwarting of an international group involved in preparing to smuggle helicopter equipment out of Russia, including into Ukraine. Sputnik quoted the FSB as saying in a statement that "the smugglers' group was commissioned by foreign organizations to purchase new components for Russian-made Mi-8 and Mi-17 helicopters. The estimated cost of these components is more than 400 million rubles ($5 million)." The FSB reported that "the group, which was preparing to smuggle helicopter equipment, included six citizens from Russia, Ukraine, and countries in the Middle East." The FSB revealed that "the number of attempts by unfriendly countries to obtain weapons and military equipment for Kyiv from Russia is unprecedented." The service stated that "since October 1, 236 attempts to smuggle drones, optical equipment, and other materials from Russia have been thwarted." It added that "in light of the growing external threats resulting from the coordinated activities of hostile states to provide material and technical assistance to Ukrainian armed groups, the security services have encountered an unprecedented number of attempts to obtain weapons and military equipment essential to the Kyiv regime's maintenance of its combat capabilities. This activity has been shown to be controlled by foreign special services on a large scale and manifests itself in the pursuit of a wide range of products from the Russian military-industrial complex." The service stated that "Kyiv has attempted to establish a stable channel for smuggling Russian aviation products to compensate for the shortfall in Ukrainian Ministry of Defense orders." Whatsapp Telegram Email Print more of (International)
