Russia’s mistake flooded traumas from the past, and caused a crisis with Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan and Russia are friends with many years of mutual hostility: in 1918, the Republic of Azerbaijan was established after a hundred years under Tsarist Russia, but it survived for only two years due to the USSR’s takeover. During World War II, Baku supplied 75% of the army’s oil consumption The Red, and in 1990 one of the traumatic events in Azerbaijan’s struggle for independence occurred, “January The Black”, in which the Soviet army murdered and wounded hundreds of civilians. Therefore, the erroneous interception by the Russian air defense system of an Azerbaijan Airlines plane on December 25 touched bare nerves.

In Moscow they worked to silence the embarrassment with unfounded claims about an “explosion of an oxygen balloon”, but the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev firmly refused. He is well acquainted with Russian methods of operation since the end of the USSR period, when he was a student and lecturer at the Moscow National University of International Relations. Aliev was quick to respond and clarify that Russia was behind the disaster in which 44 passengers and crew members were killed, in a move that unusually led President Vladimir Putin to apologize Three days later about the “tragic incident” that occurred in Russian airspace – but without taking responsibility for it.

“We can clearly say that the plane was intercepted by Russia,” Aliev said in an interview with AZTV, the state channel he controls. “First, the Russian side must apologize to Azerbaijan. Second, they must admit guilt. Third, those responsible must be punished. So far, only the first condition has been fulfilled.”

Aliyev’s handling of the interception of the civilian flight over the skies of Chechnya reminded many of his father, former president Heydar Aliyev’s, dealing with the second Chechen war, which broke out in 1999. At the time, Russia in Putin’s first year as president was fighting the Chechen rebels, who are on the Russia-Azerbaijan border, and Moscow accused Aliyev Sr. of sponsoring wounded Chechens.

“I met with President Putin in Moscow,” said Haider, who, like the Russian president, rose through the ranks of the KGB. “I informed him personally that Azerbaijan is taking care of the wounded Chechens. For us, there is a humanitarian obligation to help our neighbors. We cannot hide it – we told the truth, and expressed it directly to the face.”

Now, Eliev Jr. also found a way to take quick unilateral action, which does not align with an approach of “convenient” actions vis-a-vis Moscow. The President of Azerbaijan decided to limit the length of stay of Russian citizens in his country to 90 days during a whole year, instead of 90 days during six months. This is a step that is a signal to Moscow that Baku expects a much faster Russian examination of the serious malfunction. Still, what is true during the Heydar Aliyev era is also true during Ilham’s tenure, Azerbaijan-Russia relations resemble a tango dance in which both countries have a desire to maintain stable relations, especially for economic reasons.

provided an answer to the Europeans

The Russia-Ukraine war shook Europe, especially in the energy sector where they decided to break away from dependence on Moscow. The countries of the European Union looked for an alternative solution and found it in Azerbaijan, which is rich in natural resources, from which the volume of fossil fuel exports is constantly growing. Of Baku’s total natural gas exports in the first seven months of 2024 (14.7 BCM), which grew by 5.7%, 7.8 BCM were exported to Europe. As part of agreements between the parties, Azeri gas exports are set to reach 20 BCM per year in 2027.

The energy industry has also created an ironic situation when it comes to both Russian and Azeri natural gas. When the European Union broke away from Russia and turned to Azerbaijan, Baku in turn turned to Moscow. As early as 2022, the Europeans wanted to purchase as much natural gas as possible, Azerbaijan wanted to sell as much as possible to increase revenues, and for this purpose in November of that year it signed an agreement with the Russian energy giant Gazprom to supply 1 BCM until March 2023. In this way, Win- Russian-Azerbaijani Win: Azeris collect more revenue from Europe that broke away from Russia, but it collects revenue from the local market The Azeri that consumes her gas.

Another arena where Baku benefits from the weakening of Russia is Syria. Although Azerbaijan is a critical oil supplier to Israel and a significant customer of the defense industries, it has a close relationship with Turkey. The ties between them are based on the idea of ​​”one nation, two states” due to the fact that the Azeris are a Turkic people. Following this, this week Azerbaijan sent ten trucks carrying 200 tons of humanitarian aid to Syria. This is a step that may be the first of many.

The Azeri steps are being taken in a kind of trickle-down method, because Baku does not have the possibility to sever ties with Russia in one moment. Trade relations between the countries grew in the first ten months of 2024 by 14.5% to 3.44 billion dollars. This placed Moscow in third place in the table of Azerbaijan’s trade partners, after Italy and Turkey, with about 10% of all trade.

Even earlier, the annual trade between the countries jumped almost 1.5 times between 2021-2023 to 4.36 billion dollars. The sensitive point is that of those 3.44 billion dollars in the first ten months of 2024, 972.5 million dollars were Azeri exports – and the rest were imports. As far as growth trends are concerned, Azeri exports increased by 1.2%, but imports jumped by 19.7%. A significant part of Azeri imports from Russia is in the food sector, as last year Russia exported 1.2 million tons of wheat to Azerbaijan. In January-February 2024, there was a 40% jump in the export of fruits and vegetables compared to the corresponding period in 2023, and this places Aliev in a sensitive situation when it comes to food security.

Its advantage is that Russian exports to strategic destinations depend even more on Baku. An interesting cooperation between Russia and Azerbaijan has been taking place in recent years through the “International North-South Transport Corridor” (INSTC), which is designed to allow Russia an overland export route to India. It started even before the Houthis affected the shipping traffic in Bab al-Mandab, the southern entrance to the Red Sea. According to the statements, its use for the purpose of transporting goods from Russia, through Azerbaijan, Iran and from there to India allows the duration of transportation to be shortened by 40% compared to the use of the Red Sea, but the main idea behind it was to create an export route to India without Russian dependence on the West.

Since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, this solution has benefited Putin greatly. Land transport, which includes trains and trucks between Russia, Azerbaijan and Iran, jumped by 60% in 2022, while between the months of January and August 2023 there was a 16% increase compared to the corresponding period of the previous year. The outstanding results were divided into two: Russian exports to India in the fiscal year 2022-2023 jumped 4.7 times, and in 2023 Moscow became the largest investor in Iran, with a total of 2.76 billion dollars in the fields of transportation, industry and mining. For the purpose of comparison, the Chinese investments in the Islamic Republic amounted to 131 million dollars “only”. This is the result of a process that, in the absence of the connection through Azerbaijan, Moscow would have had difficulty implementing at such a pace.

Plays on all courts

It is true that Russia is the power with which Azerbaijan, by virtue of being a post-Soviet country, has the longest ties, but in recent years, Baku has been playing on all levels in the diplomatic arena. The energy sector has increased Europe’s dependence on Baku, but the plane interception incident comes at the end of the first decade of Aliyev’s tightening of relations with China. As part of the activity to diversify the local economy, Azerbaijan began to tighten economic ties with Beijing starting in 2015 – and thus in just four years the volume of trade between the countries jumped from 561 million dollars to 2.1 billion dollars in 2019.

One year later, a significant benefit to China from its relations with Azerbaijan was reflected in Istanbul in general: from the most populated city in Turkey, for the first time, a freight train left that made its way for 12 days along 8,693 km from Turkey, through Georgia, Azerbaijan, the sea Caspian and Kazakhstan to the city of Xi’an in China, this was a peak in the process of developing goods through the “Central Corridor” intended to be bypassed you are russia

Although Azerbaijan is a country rich in natural resources and China is the largest oil importer in the world, most of the trade between the countries is expressed in Azeri imports. The volume of trade between the countries grew in 2023 by 40% to 3.1 billion dollars, with more than 95% being imports from Beijing. This placed China, which supplies Baku with vehicles and smartphones in large volumes, in second place in the Azeri import table, at the expense of Turkey.

Looking ahead, there is an Azeri dependence on China that may be useful to Moscow in calming the spirits with Baku. Azerbaijan submitted its request to join the BRICS alliance last August. Azerbaijan’s strategic location benefits it in the transportation of goods in the central corridor from east to west, and in the north-south corridor. Baku needs these corridors for the diversification of the economy. Joining BRICS is expected to speed up the process of reducing dependence on oil and gas revenues, so it is not at all certain that Aliyev will turn in the long term in the direction of severely damaging relations with Putin.