Pro-Kremlin analyst Sergei Markov designated ‘foreign agent’, reportedly over Azerbaijan lobbying
Well-known pro-Kremlin political analyst Sergei Markov has been designated a ‘foreign agent’ in Russia, a label that many have connected to his lobbying efforts on behalf of Azerbaijan and general pro-Baku sentiments. The move comes as the tensions between Russia and Azerbaijan continue unabated.
Russia’s Justice Ministry, which manages the registry of foreign agents, said that Markov had been added to the list for creating and distributing information from other individuals or organisations already deemed to be foreign agents or ‘undesirable’, as well as acting as a respondent for foreign media or other foreign agents.
Russia implemented its foreign agents law in 2012, which has been widely viewed as a means of cracking down on independent media and civil society.
Markov defended himself against the designation, claiming the move may have been connected to him being quoted in Western media outlets like the Washington Post.
‘I am not a foreign agent. And everyone knows this well. For 25 years I have supported and continue to support [Russian President] Vladimir Putin’s policies. And I am under Canadian sanctions’, Markov wrote on Telegram on Friday.
While being a strident proponent of the Kremlin and its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Markov has emerged as a consistently pro-Azerbaijani voice in Russian media.
The extent of Markov’s lobbying on behalf of Azerbaijan is unknown, as is the amount of money he may have received from Baku for his activities.
Earlier in 2025, Markov attended a global media forum in Azerbaijan, where he praised Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, calling him ‘very wise’ and ‘one of the most experienced leaders in the modern world’.
Markov’s comments drew significant negative attention at the time, coinciding with a sharp period of tensions between Russia and Azerbaijan.
Shortly after the forum, prominent Kremlin propagandist Vladimir Solovyov said that Markov should no longer be asked on to Russian news programmes and argued that he should be designated a foreign agent.
Other pro-Kremlin figures have directly made the connection to Azerbaijan since Markov was added to the registry.
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Popular pro-war blogger Aleksandr Kots said the designation stemmed from Markov’s participation in the forum, where he ‘groveled’ in front of Aliyev, ‘who is holding Russian journalists hostage and has had Russian IT workers beaten to a pulp’.
Kots was referring to an incident earlier in July, when Azerbaijani authorities beat and arrested a number of Russian nationals, the majority of whom were reportedly IT workers, as well as parading them bloodied in front of cameras.
Participating in the forum has also been linked to negative professional consequences for another Russian journalist — Mikhail Gusman, a top official at the Russian state-run media outlet TASS, was dismissed from his position after attending the forum and praising Aliyev.
Azerbaijan’s relations with Russia are currently at an all-time low.
The roots of the current crisis can be linked to the deadly crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines (AZAL) flight in December 2024, which Baku has blamed on Russian air defence, as well as the deaths of two ethnic Azerbaijanis during a Russian police raid in Yekaterinburg in June 2025.
Since then, there have been a series of apparent tit-for-tat arrests in both countries, a trend that continued in recent days — the pro-government media outlet APA reported earlier in August that prominent Azerbaijani businessperson Yusif Khalilov had been arrested in the city of Voronezh for allegedly trying to bribe a doctor so that his son would not be drafted into the Russian army.
Javid Agha
