Igor Kartavykh, the executive director of the Baku office of the Russian state-run media outlet Sputnik Azerbaijan, has been released from custody and sent back to Russia. In June, Kartavykh and the outlet’s editor-in-chief, Yevgeny Belousov, were arrested by Azerbaijani authorities on suspicion of fraud and other charges, widely seen as politically motivated by the tensions between Baku and Moscow.
Kartavykh’s release was announced on Sunday by Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova.
‘Kartavykh was released from custody and flew to Russia’, Zakharova said; it is unclear what Belousov’s status is.
Separately, the Russian media outlet Kommersant reported that Kartavykh’s release had been negotiated between Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov and his Azerbaijani counterpart Hikmet Hajiyev. In addition, Kommersant reported that Mammadali Agayev, the former head of the Moscow Satire Theatre who had been arrested in Russia on fraud charges earlier this year, had been released from prison in exchange.
Kartavykh had been released from prison and remanded to house arrest earlier in October, while Agayaev was also freed from prison on 10 October. It is unclear if the charges against Agayev were fully dropped.
Kartavykh and Belousov were arrested after a raid on Baku’s Sputnik Azerbaijan office amidst a breakdown in relations between Azerbaijan and Russia that followed the deadly Azerbaijan Airlines crash in December 2024. The outlet was shuttered in February 2025 on orders from the Azerbaijani government and remains offline.
The arrests were likely a tit-for-tat response to the deaths of two Azerbaijani brothers in police custody in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg.
Earlier in October, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev met in Dushanbe — their first substantial in-person meeting since the plane crash — during which Putin publicly acknowledged Russia’s responsibility for the incident and apologised.
The meeting marked a significant positive upturn in the relations between the two countries, and could signal the end of almost a year of the unprecedented collapse in the ties between the long-time allies.
At the same meeting, Putin reportedly told Aliyev that Ramiz Mehdiyev, a longtime giant in Azerbaijani politics, had been plotting a coup, with other reports suggesting that Mehdiyev may have even been responsible for the plane crash.
Mehdiyev was subsequently arrested and charged with treason.
Nate Ostiller
