Ukrainian Foreign Minister Sybiha’s visit to Baku rankles Russian pro-government media

On 25 May, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha arrived in Baku on a previously unannounced visit to Azerbaijan. During the trip, he held high-level talks with his Azerbaijani counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov, as well as Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev. Sybiha’s visit was widely criticised in Russian pro-government media, which noted that he was the highest level Ukrainian official to visit the country since 2022.

According to official Ukrainian readouts of the talks, Sybiha’s conversations with Bayramov and Aliyev centred around Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, with the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry saying that Sybiha had told Bayramov about the ‘battlefield situation and thanked Azerbaijan for its principled position of respect for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity’.

He also ‘thanked Azerbaijan for its humanitarian and energy assistance, for rebuilding and supporting the city of Irpin, and for rehabilitating our children’.

Following Sybiha’s meeting with Aliyev, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said that Sybiha had ‘personally thanked President Aliyev for Azerbaijan's support for Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, as well as its humanitarian and energy assistance during the winter’.

The official Azerbaijani readouts of the meetings did not mention Russia by name, but emphasised that the bilateral relations were based on the ‘consistent support for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty’.

Aliyev’s official readout of the meeting noted that ‘Azerbaijan would continue to provide humanitarian aid to Ukraine’.

Among Sybiha’s stops on his trip to Baku was a visit to the city’s Victory Park, which celebrates Azerbaijan’s defeat of Armenia in the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, and the Alley of Martyrs, which commemorates Azerbaijanis who were killed during the Soviet crackdown in 1990 and soldiers who were killed during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War.

The park also contains a monument to Ukrainian national poet Taras Shevchenko, which Sybiha visited as well.

The Azerbaijani pro-government media outlet Caliber wrote that, ‘To symbolise enduring friendship and mutual growth between Ukraine and Azerbaijan, [Sybiha] planted a tree near the monument, marking a gesture of solidarity and cultural connection between the two nations’.

Russian media claims Azerbaijan is turning against Russia

The trip, which coincided with ongoing tension between Moscow and Baku largely connected to the deadly Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash in December 2024, was not well-received in Russia.

Ahead of the meeting, the stridently pro-Kremlin media outlet Tsargrad published an article with the title, ‘Aliyev is no longer hiding: Azerbaijan has come out on Ukraine’s side against Russia’.

The opinion piece argued that the trip, in combination with Aliyev’s last-minute announcement he would not be attending the 9 May Victory Day parade in Moscow, was a clear sign that Azerbaijan is ‘openly on Ukraine’s side’.

The article went on to criticise various aspects of Azerbaijan’s position toward Russia.

‘If this visit takes place, then it is difficult to regard it in any other way than the continuation of Aliyev’s policy of potentially breaking off relations with Russia’, the article said.

Another article by Tsargrad, published on 25 May, took a similar tone.

Along with the headline — ‘Aliyev promised something to Ukraine: the “anti-Russia” project continues. Zelensky awaits new help’ — the article also contained an AI-generated image of Aliyev with a speech bubble reading, ‘Enemies of Russia? Welcome to Baku!’.

The sentiment was not just limited to more hardline pro-Kremlin outlets like Tsargrad — the state-run media outlet RT also drew a parallel between Sybiha’s visit and Aliyev’s cancellation of his participation in the Victory Day parade.

There also appeared to be a tit-for-tat response in Azerbaijan, with the pro-government media outlet Minval Politika reporting on 26 May that Tsargrad’s website had been blocked in the country.

Minval Politika wrote the blockage had occurred after its editor-in-chief Emil Mustafayev had appealed to the government, arguing that Tsargrad was responsible for the ‘the dissemination by the channel of false and provocative information directed against Azerbaijan’.

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OC MediaAytan Farhadova