Azerbaijan has sentenced Russian national Aleksandr Vaisero to four years in prison on charges of laundering over ₼700,000 ($420,000). The 36-year-old IT specialist was detained alongside other Russian nationals at the height of diplomatic tensions between Azerbaijan and Russia in June 2025.
The Baku Court of Grave Crimes sentenced Vaisero on Wednesday.
According to RFE/RL, the prosecution accused Vaisero of hiding the true source of his income coming from betting, lotto, and other gambling sites operating outside of Azerbaijan.
In his statement in court, Vaisero said that he did not plead guilty, claiming that he visited Azerbaijan as a tourist.
The other group of Russian citizens detained around the same time were charged with drug trafficking and could face up to 12 years in prison, according to RFE/RL.
All detainees have denied the accusations and linked their arrest to the worsening relations between Azerbaijan and Russia.
Tensions between the two countries began after the crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines plane en route from Baku to Grozny on 25 December 2024, killing 38 people.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has since apologised to his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev for the incident, and Russia in mid-April agreed to compensate the victims and their families.
Prior to this meeting, in June 2025, Russian law enforcement agencies conducted raids on homes of ethnic Azerbaijanis in the Ural in connection with long-standing crimes, killing two brothers, Ziyaddin Safarov and Husein Safarov.
The incident plunged relations between Russia and Armenia to new lows, with Baku arresting a number of Russian nationals — Vaisero included — in response.
Vaisero’s sentencing came 10 days after Shahin Shikhlinski, the former head of Azerbaijan diaspora in Ural Russia, was sentenced to nine years in prison for violence against a government official — the second sentence he has received in 2026, bringing his total sentence to 24 years in prison.
