In 2017, Azerbaijan faced serious and unfounded accusations at the international level. At that time, Azerbaijan was accused of sending weapons to terrorist groups in Syria via diplomatic flights. These allegations, which were spread in Bulgaria and later widely circulated on pro-Russian media platforms, stated that the Azerbaijani company Silk Way Airlines allegedly transported weapons purchased from the United States and Eastern European countries to conflict zones on more than 350 diplomatic flights. However, over time, it turned out that this campaign had no legal or factual basis, but was purposefully organized to undermine Azerbaijan’s international reputation.
That same year, an article published by journalist Dilyana Gaytandzhieva in the Bulgarian newspaper Trud claimed that weapons were delivered to radical groups in Syria via flights operated by Azerbaijan with diplomatic status cargo. The article stated: “Azerbaijan uses diplomatic flights to transfer US weapons to conflict zones in the Middle East. Most of these flights were carried out with diplomatic immunity and did not go through customs.”
Protest from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
After the article was published, these accusations were immediately circulated by WikiLeaks, and Julian Assange gave extensive coverage to this information on his personal accounts. Russian media - Sputnik, RT, and others - made headlines with these accusations, trying to cast doubt on Azerbaijan before the international community.
Azerbaijan responded to these baseless allegations with principled and legal grounds. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that “Azerbaijan has always been committed to the norms and principles of international law. The accusations made are completely baseless and are part of a biased campaign against our country”.
In turn, Silk Way Airlines also expressed its position on the issue, noting that all flights were carried out in accordance with international norms, on the basis of official permits from organizations such as the UN and NATO: “No transportation was related to illegal cargo. Diplomatic status applies only to international military-logistics and humanitarian missions”.
Behind the scenes of the allegations
It is noteworthy that at the time of the accusations, neither the US, nor the UN, nor the European Union launched an investigation into this issue. Thus, the lack of legal basis for the allegations was also confirmed at the international level. At that time, the Azerbaijani side assessed this campaign as a politically motivated and reputational attack.
Later, the background of the events became clear. In 2025, an investigation published by the The Insider portal under the signatures of Roman Dobrokhotov, Christo Grozev and Michael Weiss revealed that the source of these “leaks” was the GRU (Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces. More commonly known as the GRU) unit No. 29155.
This unit has previously been involved in assassinations, sabotage, and sabotage operations.
GRU tried to present Azerbaijan as a tool for the West's plans
Azerbaijan's English-language TV channel Anewz.Az interviewed Christo Grozev to learn the details of the investigation.
Grozev said in the interview that the information obtained as a result of the investigation shows that many disinformation campaigns, the investigation of which for years was entrusted to the GRU units or the FSB (Russian Federal Security Service), were actually carried out by them themselves: "A significant number of their disinformation campaigns had been designed to cover their tracks—covering up assassination attempts, sabotage operations, and actual killings or explosions. The goal: discredit NATO allies, stir anti-Western sentiment, and frame Azerbaijan as a tool of the West in Syria’s war. The documents were sent to Dilyana via this fake GRU account. The Silk Way story was a masterpiece of Russian disinformation."
Dilyana Gaytandzhieva's secret ties with the GRU
Researcher Grozev also revealed interesting facts about the connections of Dilyana Gaytandzhieva, the author of the biased article about Azerbaijan, with the GRU.
“There is one journalist for whom we gathered enough evidence to name her explicitly in our report: Dilyana Gaytandzhieva. Personally, it was very difficult for me to include her name, because over the years—yes, we’ve had online conflicts, and I’ve disagreed with the conclusions she’s drawn and the platforms where she’s published her so-called investigations—but I always assumed that her motivation was ideological. It turns out it was not. It turns out she has, in fact, worked for what is probably the most terrifying department within Russian intelligence—one composed entirely of killers, people whose mission is to eliminate opposition figures, so-called traitors, and global competitors of the Kremlin. Her relationship with this GRU unit dates back to before 2017. We can’t pinpoint exactly when it began. All we know is that formal contact between representatives of the unit and Gaytandzhieva herself took place via a private Twitter chat in June 2017—and by that point, their relationship had already been ongoing for at least a year,” Grozev said.
He also added that even after her dismissal, Gaytandzhieva continued to attend events organized by the Russian Ministry of Defense, cooperated with media outlets close to the Kremlin, and began promoting conspiracy theories about alleged "biolaboratories" in Ukraine.
Azerbaijan defeated disinformation
This incident showed that lies can circulate for a while, but if there is no legal basis and international trust, their foundations are doomed to collapse. Azerbaijan successfully fought against this attack with legal grounds, diplomatic agility, and an open information policy. The fact that the allegations were not officially confirmed once again proved Azerbaijan's innocence and strong international credibility. The whole process showed that in modern times, states are obliged to protect not only their physical borders, but also their information spaces. Azerbaijan passed this test with flying colors.
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