Final charges have been brought against Shahin Shikhlinski, head of the Azerbaijani diaspora in Yekaterinburg and a Russian citizen currently in detention, and the case has been sent to court for consideration.
According to information obtained by APA, one of the investigators handling the criminal case against Shahin Shikhlinski is A.S. Karapetyan, a senior investigator for particularly important cases of the Russian Investigative Committee, a justice major of Armenian origin. During the incident that occurred on July 1, 2025, the person who gave testimony against Shikhlinski was another Armenian-origin employee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Karen Kamoyevich Tutuntsyan.
His defenders note that Shikhlinsky's criminal case was conducted unilaterally and biasedly, and that there are quite contradictory points in the charges brought against him.
What happened in June?
The cracks in relations between Azerbaijan and Russia deepened further after an AZAL civilian aircraft was shot down in Russian airspace on December 25, 2024. Following the downing of the aircraft, Russia, seeking to evade responsibility, has to this day failed to punish those responsible.
In June of this year, Russian law enforcement agencies took another step that further strained relations. An operation was carried out against Azerbaijanis living in Yekaterinburg. The process, described as an “operation” against Azerbaijanis who did not use any weapons, was marked by the use of force. As a result of violence committed by Russian law enforcement officers, two Azerbaijani brothers, Ziyaddin and Huseyn Safarov, died from the injuries they sustained. Other members of the Safarov family and several of our compatriots were arrested by court order. They were charged with crimes allegedly committed in 2001, 2010, and 2011.
On July 2, the head of the Azerbaijani diaspora in Yekaterinburg, Shahin Shikhlinski, was also violently detained. Footage circulated at the time showed law enforcement officers in military uniform, wearing masks and without identification insignia, blocking the car in which Shikhlinski was traveling in the middle of the street. Using force, they pulled Shahin Shikhlinski and his son Mutvali out of the vehicle, threw them to the ground, and handcuffed them. Mutvali Shikhlinski was released 15 minutes after being detained. Shahin Shikhlinski, however, was released after being questioned for several hours at the Investigative Department.
Later, law enforcement agencies opened a criminal case against the Shikhlinskis on charges of using violence against a representative of the state during their detention. In connection with this criminal case, Mutvali Shikhlinski was detained on July 16 and a preventive detention measure was ordered against him. Shahin Shikhlinski was declared wanted. On August 2, Shahin Shikhlinski was detained in Moscow and transferred to Yekaterinburg.
Now it turns out that at all stages of the process in this case, people of Armenian origin who are Russian citizens were actively used. Is it a coincidence? Of course not!
Anti-Azerbaijani policy continues in Russia
The case of Shahin Shikhlinski once again demonstrates that an anti-Azerbaijani policy is being pursued at the state level in Russia. Pressure and persecution against the leaders and activists of our diaspora organizations do not stop; they are arrested and stripped of Russian citizenship. The Federal Security Service (FSB), the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the Investigative Committee play a key role in this process. The aim is to neutralize the leaders of our diaspora, subordinate Azerbaijanis living in Russia, and in the future use them against Azerbaijan.
After the arrest of Shahin Shikhlinski, the subsequent arrest of Vidadi Mustafayev—who was appointed chairman of the Azerbaijani diaspora in Yekaterinburg—on serious charges within a short time became a real disgrace for those staging this spectacle. In fact, the authorities who tried to take control of the Azerbaijani diaspora by presenting Vidadi Mustafayev as a “diaspora chairman” were unable to conceal his connections with the criminal underworld and were forced to arrest him.
What is the goal of the attack that began in 2017?
It is worth recalling that the state-level attack against the Azerbaijani diaspora in Russia began in 2017 with the cancellation of the registration of the All-Russian Congress of Azerbaijanis. In the period that followed, Russia’s security structures attempted to take Azerbaijani diaspora organizations under control. When these intentions failed, they tried to fragment the organizations. Pressure was exerted on diaspora leaders, arrests were carried out, and some were stripped of Russian citizenship.
For example, it is also worth recalling that Khalid Taghizadeh, an Azerbaijani-origin deputy from the Communist Party in the Duma of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, faced pressure after his controversial speech.
On May 30 of this year, during discussions held in the Duma of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, some deputies expressed concern about the declining birth rate among the local population of the region, while noting an increase in the number of children in migrant families, including those of Uzbek and Tajik origin. They also voiced dissatisfaction with the growing influx of migrants into the region.
In his speech, Deputy Khalid Taghizadeh stated that “newcomers are different.” He recalled that in the past, Yugra and part of the Tyumen region had been part of the Siberian Khanate, whose last ruler was Kuchum Khan, a member of the Shaybanid dynasty of Uzbek origin from the Bukhara Khanate. Khalid Taghizadeh suggested that migrants might be heading to the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug as if to their historical homeland.
This did not sit well with Russian state structures. As punishment for this speech, Khalid Taghizadeh’s salary was suspended, he was stripped of his mandate, and charges were brought against him. As a result of all this pressure, Khalid Taghizadeh was forced to leave Russia.
Arrests and deprivation of citizenship
The arrest of Faig Aliyev, an Azerbaijani-born businessman and head of the Azerbaijani National Congress of the Smolensk region; the arrest of Yusif Khalilov, the head of the diaspora in Voronezh; the deprivation of Russian citizenship of Islam Huseynov, head of the Azerbaijani diaspora in Ulyanovsk and adviser to the governor of Ulyanovsk; as well as Elshan Ibrahimov, head of the Regional National-Cultural Autonomy of Moscow Azerbaijanis in the Moscow region, and other similar cases are manifestations of a hostile policy toward Azerbaijanis in Russia.
At present, the fact that the criminal case against Shikhlinski is being conducted in such a one-sided and biased manner—moreover by an investigator of Armenian origin—also demonstrates the ugliness of Russia’s attitude toward Azerbaijanis.
All of these issues are under the attention of the Azerbaijani state and personally President Ilham Aliyev. It was precisely due to the efforts of the head of state that Voronezh diaspora leader Yusif Khalilov was released. Currently, the case of Shahin Shikhlinski is also under supervision, and the likelihood of his release is high.
Why are those responsible for shooting down the AZAL aircraft not being punished?
On December 25 of this year, one year will have passed since Azerbaijan’s civilian aircraft was shot down in Russian airspace. While Russian authorities have swiftly brought Azerbaijanis to court on fabricated charges—aiming to leave our diaspora without leadership—they have so far failed to hold accountable those responsible for shooting down Azerbaijan’s civilian aircraft. This is despite the fact that on October 9 of this year, Russian President Vladimir Putin apologized for the incident and stated that the criminal investigation would be concluded in the near future. Russian officials who made repeated visits to Azerbaijan also gave assurances.
However, in Russia today it is not those who commit crimes against Azerbaijanis who are being punished, but Azerbaijanis themselves. This shows that official Moscow is not interested in eliminating the tensions that have arisen between the two states, but rather in deepening them further.
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