Raids, repression, and deaths of Azerbaijanis: truth behind Russia's crackdowns

[ad_1] BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 28. Inside each pseudo-great energy lies a primitive savagery - an instinctive urge to search out an enemy, to scapegoat them, responsible them for its personal failures and tragedies, as if anybody on this world could possibly be held accountable for mindless collapses and false reigns. Russia, scorched by its personal contradictions and a cursed sense of greatness that has lengthy decayed into mud, attracts not geographical however psychological borders. These boundaries aren’t discovered on maps however in minds, slicing by means of hearts like a rusty knife, dividing folks into "us" and "them". Questions like who deserves love or who has surpassed whom are left unanswered. The race for this legendary superiority by no means ends - it’s a race with no end line, a cry of insecurity, a relentless march in circles.

Every era in Russia creates a brand new enemy. And that enemy is all the time somebody who ought to by no means be one. When an empire is in agony, when its final pitiful remnants scream a few superb previous, it begins to invent foes like a beast of folklore. At this time’s enemies are migrants, folks from the Caucasus, Azerbaijanis - those that have lived aspect by aspect for hundreds of years, breathed the identical air, absorbed the identical tradition. We're not simply neighbors - we're one. Historical past can't be separated from the individuals who formed it. However because the decaying empire begins to crumble, those that have been as soon as part of it are solid out. Not seen as folks, they develop into targets. Their accents provoke hate, their phrases are seen as alien and offensive. Their lives develop into grounds for brutal revenge. Inside these invisible however terrifying borders of malice, their names are crimes, and their lives - punishment.

At this time, Yekaterinburg isn't just a spot the place justice is at stake. It’s a frenzy that shakes the very soul of energy. Police, officers, and people governing this decaying physique don’t know the way to take care of accents, pores and skin tones, or appearances that don’t match their uninteresting, twisted concepts of who's "considered one of us" and who's "different". Each phrase, each accent that doesn’t align with their stone-cold expressions is met with hatred. As a result of they don’t know what conscience is. There is no such thing as a conscience. No justice. Just one weapon stays, which they wave like a proud banner: concern. This isn’t patriotism. It’s violence - a system pressured into submission, excused by monstrous brutality. And so they themselves develop into monsters.

Let’s not neglect: in 2006, throughout a marketing campaign to "restore order" at Moscow’s markets, the Inside Ministry and Federal Migration Service carried out large-scale raids, primarily concentrating on the Azerbaijani neighborhood. In two months, over 1,500 folks have been detained, almost 40% have been Azerbaijani residents. Eyewitnesses spoke of mass humiliation, detentions in freezing warehouses with out meals or water, and police abuse. Regardless of protests by human rights activists, no penalties adopted.

In 2013, after the killing of a younger Russian in Biryulyovo, ethnic hysteria broke out. Orkhan Zeynalov, an Azerbaijani, was charged, although no intent was confirmed in courtroom. Nonetheless, the media frenzy sparked pogroms affecting greater than 300 Azerbaijanis. Over 1,200 folks have been detained, and a whole lot deported.

In 2019-2020, as migration legal guidelines tightened, mass "inspections" of Azerbaijanis occurred within the Moscow suburbs. 65% of these detained have been Azerbaijani residents, underscoring the authorities’ bias towards this ethnic group.

These sinister traits have solely intensified. Based on Human Rights Watch and Amnesty Worldwide, between 2021 and 2025, 148 ethnically motivated assaults on Azerbaijanis have been documented—together with murders just like the killing of 22-year-old Elnur Guliyev in Kazan in 2023, whose investigation was shortly suspended.

Tensions escalated additional in Yekaterinburg in 2024. Throughout police and Nationwide Guard raids, greater than 380 Azerbaijanis have been detained, lots of whom held legitimate work permits. Experiences cite torture, psychological abuse, threats to manufacture expenses, and even threats to arrest kinfolk in Azerbaijan.

Based on monitoring teams, between January and Might 2025 alone, over 220 instances have been filed in Sverdlovsk area relating to strain on migrants and coercion to signal navy contracts with the Russian Ministry of Protection. These weren’t voluntary enlistments - they concerned threats of false expenses, intimidation of relations, and in lots of instances, outright violence. Russian media reported in April 2025 a surge in felony expenses in opposition to migrants on doubtful grounds, adopted by presents to “clear their data” in alternate for navy service.

Statements by officers affirm that this isn't an remoted observe however a systemic coverage. On Might 12, 2025, the pinnacle of Russia’s Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, informed Rossiyskaya Gazeta: "Involving migrants in fulfilling state duties within the [so-called] particular navy operation zone is a part of state coverage". This clearly signifies a centralized method - not sporadic initiatives by native areas.

Discriminatory profiling, the place police and FSB detain younger males primarily based solely on look or faith, is going on throughout Russia. A Might 21, 2025, report by the Council of Muftis of Russia said that Islamophobic incidents and segregation rose 34% year-on-year, pointing to a focused marketing campaign to suppress Muslim communities.

These traits additionally replicate in Russia’s perspective towards Azerbaijan. In Might 2025, an Azerbaijani MP invited to a cultural occasion in Astrakhan was denied entry by Russian border guards. This act highlights how anti-Azerbaijani sentiment inside Russian elites is changing into much less hid and extra integral to the nationalist agenda.

These sentiments are fueled by pro-Kremlin figures like Vladimir Solovyov, who in Might 2025 made recent anti-Azerbaijani remarks on state TV, labeling the Azerbaijani neighborhood as "unreliable". Such statements aren’t random - they’re a part of a coordinated data marketing campaign aimed toward setting up an inside “enemy.”

Cyberattacks on Azerbaijani authorities and public establishments, documented earlier this yr, additionally match this sample. A March 2025 report by a Milli Majlis fee confirmed that a number of assaults on state networks bore digital traces of Russian teams performing with the data or participation of Russian safety providers.

One wound stays particularly uncooked for Baku: the downing of an Azerbaijani civilian plane. Regardless of repeated appeals, Russia has taken no efficient motion to research or punish these accountable.

All of this exhibits a transparent sample: going through mounting home challenges from the struggle in Ukraine and sanctions, the Russian authorities is searching for handy "inside" and "exterior" enemies to justify its social and financial decline. Notably, it’s the Muslim and Turkic peoples, traditionally and culturally misplaced within the framework of Russian imperial nationalism, who come underneath fireplace. That is mirrored in systemic segregation, rising political and social Islamophobia, and the empowerment of far-right actions, which in 2025 have been given unprecedented freedom.

Regional dangers are additionally infected by Russia’s actions towards Armenia. Underneath the guise of alliance rhetoric, Moscow is nudging Yerevan towards revanchism. Latest speeches by Robert Kocharyan, Serzh Sargsyan, and different Kremlin-backed figures are once more stuffed with belligerent rhetoric about Karabakh and the South Caucasus. The aim is obvious—to distract Armenian society from inside issues and reignite battle as a strain instrument. Russia goals to protect its navy presence within the area underneath the pretext of "safety ensures", which in actuality indicators a continuation of its neo-colonial coverage.

...Certainly, Russia has been shaken by the very evil it created. Putin’s present insurance policies characterize the ugliest type of selective militarist chauvinism that the Russian Empire has stoked for many years. The brutality towards neighboring peoples at the moment is not any accident - it's the logical final result of a system the place the tragedies of Azerbaijanis, Uzbeks, Kyrgyz, Turkmens, and different peoples go unnoticed. Our brothers and sisters have develop into victims of political cynicism and inhuman cruelty, now normalized within the Russian system.

Discrimination and violence in opposition to Ukrainians, Chechens, and now Azerbaijanis is handled as regular. There’s no shock, no regret, as a result of these atrocities are rooted within the very nature of the Russian state.

It's possible you'll ask: How is it doable? How can such cruelty, ethnic cleaning, and violence develop into "regular"? These crimes have been normalized as a result of they’re embedded within the core of Russian imperial coverage. A century in the past, it endured bloody revolutions and Stalinist purges, but its inside nature remained unchanged. The politics of terror have all the time been intertwined with Russian chauvinism and the annihilation of something that resists Russification or fails to suit their weird, barbaric political custom.

And now we see the reality. Within the twenty first century, in a contemporary, democratic Europe that values equality, freedom, and human dignity, Russian authorities declare the precise to destroy us as a folks. There is no such thing as a distinction between this and the way Russia razed Ukrainian cities utilizing high-tech weaponry, committing genocide. The crimes in Bucha, Mariupol, and different cities are echoes of the identical insurance policies Russia makes use of in opposition to us in Azerbaijan.

However don’t be mistaken - this isn't remoted. Since its inception, Russia has saturated us all with chauvinism and aggression. Linguistic and cultural erasure, destruction of id, financial sabotage, and political suppression - that's their method. Not accidents, however a part of a deeply rooted imperial technique. The collapse of the USSR didn’t finish it - it merely reworked right into a extra ruthless type. Ethnic cleaning of Chechens within the Nineties, at the moment’s aggression in Ukraine and the Caucasus - these are simply evolutions of the identical chauvinist ideology.

Within the Nineties, skinhead violence raged on Russian streets, tacitly backed by authorities. Within the 2020s, the identical violence, bias, and aggression are actually brazenly enforced by Russia’s regulation enforcement system - absolutely answerable for the nation’s authorized lawlessness. Allow us to not neglect that the Russian Orthodox Church actively incites this violence in its propaganda, justifying the state’s brutality and embedding the concept ethnic cleaning, struggle, and violence should not simply acceptable - however mandatory for the "purity of the Russian soul".

The tragedy of the peoples of Russia is that they reside underneath a regime that tasks humanism overseas however operates as a brutal machine internally - grinding up values and burning them in its engine. A system that conquers complete peoples, razes cultures, and depletes assets within the title of empire. Russia could communicate of defending "Russians", however in reality, it defends solely the pursuits of elites who govern this cruel machine.

Allow us to always remember: behind the tragedy of January 20, the Khojaly genocide, and the occupation of Azerbaijani lands for almost 30 years stood not simply Armenian aggression - however Russia’s direct involvement. Moscow not solely stood idle however actively fanned the flames, aiding the aggressor. What number of instances did Russia exploit our battle with Armenia for its achieve? What number of instances did it aspect with those that destroyed our cities and villages? In each case, we noticed Russia’s hand.

However these should not simply emotional phrases - they arrive from a dwelling, blood-and-flesh nationwide consciousness that, regardless of each try to suppress or silence it, can not and should not be crushed by political video games or diplomatic manipulation. And anybody who thinks it may be ignored is mistaken. Historical past all the time finds its voice. And nationwide consciousness - that is its unbreakable pressure.