Azerbaijan summons Russian Ambassador over missile strike on embassy in Ukraine
Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry has summoned Russian Ambassador Mikhail Yevdokimov after the Azerbaijani Embassy in Kyiv was severely damaged as a result of a Russian missile strike. The incident was at least the fourth time that the embassy has been damaged by Russian attacks on the city.
On the night of 14 November, during a large-scale, combined airstrike by Russian armed forces on Kyiv, a missile hit the embassy compound, creating a large crack in the building.
‘The walls, including those of the embassy building, were seriously damaged. Part of the wall was blown off, the embassy’s windows were shattered, and the diplomats’ cars were also damaged’, Azerbaijani state media reported.
No embassy staff were injured as a result of the strike.
This marks at least the fourth time the Azerbaijani embassy building in Kyiv has been damaged as a result of airstrikes. However, Azerbaijani state media noted that ‘the extent of the damage this time was significantly greater and more serious’.
In late August, a missile exploded near the embassy building shattering windows and creating cracks in the roof of the consular section. Earlier that same month, two separate Russian drone strikes damaged a facility in the Odesa region operated by the Azerbaijani oil company SOCAR.
In July, a kamikaze drone exploded near the embassy causing some damage.
In their discussions with Yevdokimov, the Foreign Ministry also recalled a 2022 airstrike on the Honorary Consulate in Kharkhiv — noting that ‘the administrative building was seriously damaged and the service car was rendered unusable’ — as well as an airstrike in January 2024, as a result of which ‘a crater with a diameter of approximately 3 metres was formed about 35 steps away from the embassy’s administrative building, and an unexploded ordnance due to detonation failure was discovered at a depth of 8 metres from the ground’.
The ministry emphasised that all of these incidents ‘raise questions about the deliberate nature of the missile attacks’.
They further noted that Russia had been informed of all these facts in the past through official notes, and that the coordinates of the buildings housing all diplomatic missions in Ukraine had been shared as early as April 2022.
‘During the meeting, it was stressed that such attacks on our diplomatic missions are unacceptable, and it was requested that the Russian side conduct an appropriate investigation into the issue and provide a detailed explanation’, the ministry’s statement concluded.
Separately, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi called Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to condemn the Russian missile strike, noting that ‘such attacks on diplomatic missions are unacceptable according to the norms and principles of international law’.
He also ‘expressed gratitude’ for Azerbaijan’s humanitarian support to Ukraine.
The Azerbaijani Embassy is located in Kyiv’s central Lukyanivka district, just a few blocks away from the Lukyanivska Metro Station and the Artem arms factory, which has been repeatedly targeted since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion.
Nate Ostiller
